Three brass balls

ROBERT W WDODRUFF
LIBRARY

THEEE
BRASS BALLS.

BY

GEORGE R. SIMS,

AUTHOR OF
' THE SOCIAL KALEIDOSCOPE,'- " ZEPH," " THE DAGONET BALLADS,'

{REPRINTED FROM TSE '• WEEKLY DISPATCH.")

LONDON:

Published by Thomas Vernon, Wine Office Court,
Fleet Street, E.C.

DEDICATION.

These Pages are affectionately dedicated to
MY UNCLE.

PREFACE.

The "Three Brass Balls" which occasionally
figure at the side of a Pawnbroker's door have
been selected as a title for these sketches, the
" Three Gilt Balls," which hang higher up, having
already done duty outside a cover. The writer's
purpose has not been to attack the trade, which is,
with few exceptions, honourably conducted, but to
narrate the history of some of the customers. He
takes this opportunity of acknowledging the kind-
ness of an old-established and highly-esteemed
pawnbroker, who placed much valuable information
at his service.

London, June, 1880.

CONTENTS.

Prologue ........ i

A Gold Bracelet ...... 5

A Flannel Petticoat , , . . . .13

A Diamond Ring , 26

A Suit of Black ........ 39

A Gold Locket .„..,.. 54

A Dress Suit . . 67

A Wedding Ring 80

A Diamond Necklace 93

A Pair of Blankets ...... 105

A Surplice . . . . . . . .118

A Silver Watch . . , . , . 130

A Pair of Boots 144

A Flat Iron ..... 157

A "Shakespeare" ... ... 169

A Coral and Bells ... ... 183

A Musical Box . 195

A Pair of Earrings 207

A Family Bible . 219

Various 231

A War Medal ....... 244

THREE BRASS BALLS.

PROLOGUE.

Three Brass Balls ! They are in half relief on the big
outside door-plate of the pawnbroker's shop. Three Brass
Balls ! Their gilded brethren hang high above them — so
high that only those who look up to the heavens can see
them. They gleam in the bright summer sunshine ; they
loom dimly through the winter fog, those " golden " balls,
far up above the heads of the toiling multitude that surges
from morn till night along the busy thoroughfare. Over
the gates of Hades was the dread inscription, " Abandon
hope all ye who enter here." Over the pawnbroker's shop
door the pendant sign says mutely to eye and heart,
" Abandon something all ye who enter here." Abandon
something ! A prized trinket of happier days, a souvenir of
the long ago, a keepsake, given, perhaps, by one who lies
cold in the grave, the old familiar objects of home, the
heirlooms kept sacredly for generations, the furniture of
your house, the clothes from you back, the implements of
your daily toil, the bed you lie on — it matters not what, —
here all is fish that comes to the mighty net.

Here, on the door-plate opposite your eyes, are the three

PROLOGUE.

brass balls bidding the harassed, the poor, the starving, and
the reckless enter and abandon something in exchange for
silver and gold — in exchange, perhaps, for the warmth that
the numbed limbs need, for the food that the gnawing
hunger craves.

The golden symbols are too high above for all the storm-
tossed wanderers who drift to this haven of grace to see.
They come with trembling feet and blushing cheeks, maybe ;
with eyes cast down to earth, not raised to the heavens
above. They might not see the brave emblems that hang
on high in all the glory of gold leaf and burnish. But their
furtive glances are met by the three brass balls on the bold
broad plate at the door, and they creep into the narrow
dark boxes, where all is gloom, and where unseen they
make the sacrifice.

When the tempest howls, and the billows, rising like huge
mountains, threaten to engulf the ship, her load is lightened.
Over into the seething ocean the priceless cargo is flung
bit by bit that she may ride through the gale. Fierce are
the storms too often that rage around the human craft on the
ocean of life. With trembling hands and tearful eyes little
by little the cargo is parted with, that the vessel may keep
upon its way and not be shattered by the threatening waves
of want and misery. And when at last the frail human
craft drifts into its last harbour it is too often but a bare
oattered hulk.

Here it is that the cargo is lightened ; here it is, under
the shadow of the three brass balls, that one by one the

PROLOGUE.

prized objects of life are flung overboard, too often to drift
away and be seen no more by those to whom they are most
dear.

To the reckless and the unthrifty this is but a depot — a
place to De visited from time to time with a light heart when
the week's money has gone in drink, or a day's outing calls for
more cash in hand. The regular customers crowd at
certain periods and sacrifice their household gods with no
thought of sacrilege, intending to redeem them and sacrifice
them again, and looking upon the proceeding as an ordinary
transaction of everyday life.

But there are those who creep here with breaking hearts
and swimming eyes to offer up all that is dearest to them —
to sacrifice, often with the holiest motive, their most
cherished idols. With them too often the sacrifice is com-
plete. There is no redemption. The idol is cast down for
ever ; the storm will carry away far, far beyond their long-
ing eyes the treasures that in their despair they trusted to
the ocean.

The Fates are three, the Furies are three, and the ancient
symbols over the pawnbroker's door are three.

Three Brass Balls ! Weird and woful are the stories
they could tell of the ruined and broken-hearted, of the
wanton and the reckless, the wicked and the cruel, that
creep past them day by day into the gloom beyond. It is
the voice they lack which now shall speak ; they are the
stories hidden away in their brazen breasts which here shall
be told. Poverty and crime, starvation and waste, virtue

PROLOGUE.

and vice, all the sorrows and all the sins have filed past
those three brass balls to swell the catalogue of objects
which lie garnered within. Cold and cruel in the sharp
winter air the brazen emblems gleam like mocking demons
at the gates of Purgatory ; and these are the secrets which
they hide in their hollow hearts.

Pledge I.
A GOLD BRACELET

There it lies among the unredeemed pledges, a beautiful
gold bracelet. Hardly a tale of poverty or wretchedness
about that, one would think. The poor don't have massive
gold bracelets to pawn ; flatirons and flannel petticoats are
more in their way.

How did this bracelet come to be pawned and remain
unredeemed ? Let us look at the ticket on it. " Mrs.
Smith " — ah, a married lady. Amount advanced, £2. Why,
the bracelet is honestly worth £5. How ever came Mrs.
Smith to part with her beautiful bracelet for such an absurd
sum ?

Was she poor, this Mrs. Smith ? Had she come down in
the world suddenly and been compelled to part with her
jewellery to pay rent, or to buy her sick husband luxuries,
or to bury her dead baby ? Perhaps. Married ladies with
bracelets do sometimes drift into poverty and have sick
husbands to feed and dead babies to bury when there is no
money in the house ; and up stairs in a little drawer there
lies still a treasured trinket, the last, perhaps, of many.

This one she has struggled hard to keep. She prizes it,
perhaps, for old associations, for the sake of the giver, for
the sake of the dear old days when it clasped her pretty
round arm, and life seemed only a happy dream, all loving
words and pretty things.

And now ! Poor Mrs. Smith, she had found out what life

THREE BRASS BALLS.

is. When she parted with this bracelet the loving words
were seldom spoken, the light had died slowly out of the
sky, the pretty things had gone one by one, and the grim
spectre of want extended its greedy hands and claimed the
last relic of the happy past.

Stay. Let us examine the bracelet more closely. See,
there is an inscription inside. That accounts to some
extent for the smallness of the sum advanced. An in-
scription depreciates the value. " From Frank to Milly,
January ist, 18 — ." A lover's new year's gift evidently.

Yes; this bracelet was a new year's gift, but we are
wasting our sympathy over it. Rather, we are bestowing
it on the person who least deserves it — the Mrs. Smith who
put it down one March afternoon on the pawnbroker's
counter and asked £2 upon it. Mrs. Smith was only a
false name, the first name that came to the woman's lips.

Hearts were broken over that band of gold, but not hers.
It can claim its dead, but she wots not of that. A young
life in its flower lies crushed between the clasp of the
glittering toy, shame and humiliation hover about it, and its
story is one of temptation, crime, and bitter atonement.

But on the cold March afternoon when Mrs. Smith swung
back the door, and passed under the shadow of the three
brass balls, there was no romance about the transaction.

She was only a charwoman. Her young mistress was
hard up, and had handed the bracelet to her, and told
her to get a couple of pounds on it, that was all. It
wasn't the first time she had pawned things for her youn<*
mistress, and probably it would not be the last.

To tell the truth, her young mistress, Mrs. Gordon was
just now under a cloud, and Mrs. Smith, the charwoman
counting up the number of things she had lately deposited

A GOLD BRACELET

in safe keeping in return for a ticket and some ready cash,
might be excused if she wondered how long it would
last.

Not very long, evidently, for Mrs. Gordon wanted lots of
money, and Mr. Gordon was not only in queer street, but
he never came near the street where Mrs. Gordon resided.

" Poor Milly Gordon ! " said folks who knew just half her
story. "What a fool to go and marry a scamp like that,
just when she was making her mark at the music-halls and
getting a good salary."

He was a scamp, there was no mistake about that. He
was supposed to be a diamond merchant when he carried
Milly off from all his rivals, gave her his hand, heart, and
name, and started housekeeping in street, Oxford-
street, in first-class style.

Three months afterwards everybody knew he was a rascal,
a money-lender who never lent money, a bill discounter
who took bills of foolish young men and discounted them.
Yes, he certainly discounted them — but he kept the pro-
ceeds for himself.

It was a grand match for a young vocalist like Milly. His
name was in the papers presently, and the whole story was
out. Then he had to get out of the way for a while. He
took all the jewellery he could, but Milly, who had learned
a good deal in three months, had hidden half of it.

When he was hiding, he wrote to her and told her she'd
better go on at the music-hall again. Not a bad idea, and
he would claim all her earnings. Milly's mamma was a
very clever woman, and she advised her daughter to wait
a bit till the land was a little clearer. She hinted that a
divorce might be possible from circumstances which had
come to her knowledge, and in the meanwhile Milly had

THREE BRASS BALLS.

better do with what she had left, and if she was short she
must pawn some of her jewellery.

It was not jewellery that Mr. Gordon had given her. He
had secured all that long ago. No, the jewellery referred
to was some that Milly had before her marriage, presents
which used to be left at the hall, or sent to the little
suburban house, where she lived with mamma. Lots of
presents went to that little suburban house. Mamma re-
ceived them all and took care of them. Mamma also
watched carefully over her talented daughter, and saw that
her young affections were not trifled with.

Milly's mamma was reckoned rather a nuisance by the
young gentlemen who were over head and ears in love with
the pretty little songstress. It was such a dreadful blow
to plan a nice little dinner and ask Milly, and then to re-
ceive a pretty little scented note accepting the invitation
thus : " Ma and myself will be So gladd to dine with you
to-morrer at the time menshuned."

Mamma always played gooseberry on those occasions.
You see, she had set her mind on a good match. Her girl
was not going to throw herself away and to get mixed up
with a lot of young dandies who were all shirt-front and
nothing much else to boast of. Money! Money! Money!
That was mamma's idea. "Take all they like to give you,
Milly," washer advice; "but don't encourage them my
dear."

And Milly did not— except in one instance, and then
there was no harm. He was such a pure-minded, innocent
boy. He blushed when Milly spoke to him, he called her
mother Madam, and he loved the girl with a love as pure
and innocent as ever God planted in the breast of guileless
youth.

A GOLD BRACELET

Milly encouraged him, and mamma allowed her to. There
was no harm likely to come of it — to Milly. As to the boy
— well, that was his look out.

He didn't give grand dinners. He came to tea at the
little suburban house. They didn't know quite how the
acquaintance sprang up. He had been to the hall and seen
Milly, and somehow had been introduced to her. He called
and left flowers and fruit, and one day mamma asked him
to tea.

Poor, merry, innocent Frank Ayrton ! I can see your
frank blue eyes and comely laughing face, beaming with
happiness and love. I remember the night when you were
pointed out to me at the chairman's table as "hard hit" by
the lively Milly, and how I watched you, and, knowing what
I knew, pitied you from the bottom of my heart.

Four years have gone by since that night. You are ex-
piating in a far-off land the result of your blind infatuation

for a heartless girl, and she Rain-soaked and tattered

on the hoarding visible from my study window hangs a huge
poster, and on it in capital letters I see the name of your
old sweetheart, who is charming the golden youth of the
music-halls with her silvery voice. You disappeared from
the scene, Frank Ayrton, long before Mr. Gordon came.
You had fluttered, poor moth, about the candle long enough.
Your wings were scorched, and you had fallen to fly no
more.

Ah, glittering gold bracelet, how meekly you lie in your
velvet case, among the wreck and ruin of so many lives and
homes — unredeemed pledges. Aye, unredeemed pledges
of youth and manhood, of hope and love ; unredeemed
pledges of all that was so bright and fair once, and now is
dark and desolate as the gloomy place wherein you lie.

io THREE BRASS BALLS.

Many a hand has touched you, O glittering toy, since the
day that Frank Ayrton bought you in the jeweller's shop in
Bond-street, and bore you joyously to the little suburban
house, and, blushing and trembling, clasped you on a white
and slender wrist, murmuring, "Wear this, Milly, for my
sake."

She took his present. She kissed him. And the lad's
heart leapt for joy.

One present bought a kiss ! From that moment the road
of ruin lay before him. Blind, mad, he rushed along it.
Love swept away all barriers. His own slender stock of
money went in the wild race for bliss. He was but a
City clerk, the hope and star of a widowed mother, the
light of a humble little home, where brothers and sisters all
toiled for the common weal.

All was neglected now. Business, mother, friends — one
only claimed him — Milly.

The end came swiftly. The tale was told one evening
when Milly was bidden to come to the manager's room.
There was a man there whom she knew by sight — a detect-
ive. "Beg pardon, miss," said the man, "but has a young
gent named Frank Ayrton given you much jewellery lately?"

" O, yes."

Milly rattled off such items as she chose to mention.

" Thank you ; that will do. He's been robbing his em-
ployers to a very large amount, and we only want to know
where the money's gone."

It was very annoying, of course, but it was nothing to
do with Milly or her mother. They knew he wasn't rich,
this Frank Ayrton, but they were not to know he was
robbing anybody to make presents of bracelets and neck-
laces and rings.

A GOLD BRACELET u

Some of the jewellery was given up after a deal of per-
suasion. Opinion, you see, was rather against Milly at
the hall in this matter, and a certain sacrifice had to be
made to opinion.

Among the things kept back was the gold bracelet,
Frank's first valuable present. There was no sentiment
about keeping it. The girl kept it because she liked it.

Frank Ayrton was condemned to a long period of penal
servitude. With a white ashen face he heard the judge's
awful sentence, and his lips moved in prayer. The court
was hushed, and these words throbbed through the
silence —

" God help my poor old mother ! "

Aye, God help her, for man never could. She bowed
her head in agony when they took her darling away, and
her heart broke. Never a word of complaining, never a
cry against those who had lured him to his fate, only a face
growing thinner and thinner, and tearless eyes staring into
the past andbeholding the idol of her life, now an innocent
child at her knee, and now the handsome youth on whose
arm she leant as her steps grew feeble and her eyes grew
dim.

All was over now. Never more in this world would the
bright face flash its sunshine to her heart — never more
would the kindly hand press hers. Lost — lost for ever
more.

Her other children came about her, and she smiled faintly,
but her life was chilled. There was no warmth anywhere.
She was deaf — for she could not hear her boy — and was
blind, for she could not see his face. In God's mercy the
last great darkness closed about her soon, and then the fond
heart ceased to ache. When the last breath struggled from

i2 THREE BRASS BALLS.

its poor case of clay it bore a name with it up to the throne
of God.

That name was Frank.

*****

It was when Milly Gordon, deserted by the broken-down
swindler she had married, was searching her jewels to see
which she best could spare that she came upon the gold
bracelet.

"Hullo! "she said; "I'd forgotten that. It's the one
that gaby Frank Ayrton gave me. Poor fool ! Here,
Nance, take this with you when you go out presently, and
get a couple of pounds on it."

And there it lies to-day, unredeemed. The time has gone
by, and now it will be sold.

O, gleaming band of gold, what will be your fate ? Who
knows ? To go forth into the world again and deck the
white flesh of wanton arms, to tempt folly and to pay vice?
Who knows ?

Perhaps the eye of love, honest and true, may light upon
you. The inscription may be erased, and you may clasp
the wrist of a sweet young wife ; faith and purity may
hallow the memento of a lad's o'er-tempted love and a
mother's broken heart.

The woman who wore you once, and wrought the ruin
that seems as I gaze upon you to fling its shadow over your
shining face, has never missed you, has never thought of
you since she flung you to the old charwoman to pawn for
the pounds she wasted a short hour afterwards.

Only a gold bracelet, lying among the unredeemed
pledges in a pawnbroker's shop, and this is its story.

Pledge II.
A FLANNEL PETTICOAT

An old worn-out flannel petticoat ! The merest trifle
lent upon it — just a few coppers. The date on the ticket
shows that it was on the coldest day of last winter that
some wretched creature parted with it — came shivering
through the raw, biting air, with this, almost her last garment,
to change it for a crust to eat.

The snow lay thick on the streets of London town that
cruel winter day, the keen east wind seized belated way-
farers by the throat, and the faces of healthy, well-fed folks
were blue, and their teeth chattered as, comfortably clad,
they hurried along. But they thought thankfully of the
snug home and cheery fire that would greet them at their
journey's end, and only walked faster and drew their com-
forters more tightly round them.

Down in Balder's-gardens — gardens where the weeds
grow rankest, and flowers there are none — gardens where
the foulest filth lies thick and disease in its myriad forms
blossoms luxuriantly in the fattening soil — down in Balder's-
gardens the demon of fever was abroad, and Death was
reaping a ripe harvest.

In the back room on the ground floor of one of the
houses were three people. On a heap of rags lay a man in
the last stage of consumption. In the opposite corner lay
a dead child, and over it bent a woman rocking herself to
and fro in an agony of grief, and muttering unintelligible
words.

14 THREE BRASS BALLS.

A foul stench pervaded the atmosphere — the room was an
inch thick in dirt and fungi caused by damp. The floor was
rotten. Great patches of the ceiling were gone, and all
was ruin and decay.

"Meg!"

From the heap of rags came the voice, and the woman
left her dead baby and went over to the man.

" Meg, prop us up a bit, will you ? "

The woman stooped down and drew her husband up so
that his back rested against the horrible wall.

" Meg, it won't be long now before I'm gone. You ain't
goin' out any more to-day, are you ? "

The woman stooped down, and as she did so the dying
man lifted his arm and put it about her neck.

O, such a thin, wasted arm. An arm that told how fell
had been the ravages of the disease whose work was well

nigh done.

" Meg, dear," whispered the man in a faint, weak voice,
"stay with me now. Don't let me die alone."

The woman, who had dried her streaming eyes when she
came to her husband's side, broke down, and pressing her
lips on the clammy brow, let her hot tears rain over his
wan white face.

" Don't, Meg, don't," he cried. " Bear up, my brave lass.
Why should you cry ? I shall be well off soon. I shall be
where there's no more hunger and cold and suffering. I
shall be where the poor bairn's gone, thank God before
me."

" And I shall be left alone ! "

There was a tone of reproach in the woman's voice. She
couldn't help it. A moment afterwards she had laid the
man's head on her trembling breast and was soothing him.

A FLANNEL PETTICOAT 15

" Won't you try and lie still, dear," she said, "while I go
and get you something? "

" Where can you get anything, Meg ? 1 don't want
anything."

" You are hungry, Jem, ain't you ? "

The man smiled a faint, sickly smile.

" No, dear, not very. I can last till — till I die."

" Don't talk like that, Jem. You may live days yet if — "

" If I have nourishing things — yes, I know. No, Meg, I
wouldn't die with that crime on my soul. Do you think I
would rob you of the last rag you have left that I might
endure a few days more of anguish ? Do you think I don't
know," he cried, raising his voice excitedly, " how you've
got the things I've had already ? How you've robbed your-
self, bit by bit, of every vestige of comfort that I might eat ?
Haven't you pawned nearly every rag on your back ? "

" No, really I haven't, dear. Don't you fancy that, Jem.
It's your things I've pawned because — "

" Because you knew I'd never want 'em again. Quite
right, Meg, I never shall ! "

" Let me go out now, Jem ; I want to go about burying
poor baby, and when I come back you shall have a cup of
tea."

The man's bright eyes, bright with the inward flame
that was consuming him, grew brighter still. A cup of tea !

Racked with pain, faint and hungry, and feverish, with
his lips dry and cracking, his tongue glued to his mouth,
and yet his body blue with the piercing cold that swept
through crack and crevice and broken pane, his wife spoke
to him of a cup of tea !

She noticed the look — she read its meaning. Amid all
her agony, the loss of her poor baby, the sight of her

i6 THREE BRASS BALLS.

husband dying in this scene of horror slowly before her
eyes, and her own cruel torture, which she hid as well as
she could, there came a ray of sunshine to her. She had
found out something that would give him one moment's
ease — something he would like — a cup of tea.

He should have it. Her poor clothes, every stick of furni-
ture, every mean little thing on which a copper could be
raised, had gone during the weary months Jem Summershad
been slowly dying ; but she vowed that he should have his
cup of tea.

They had paid their last farthing the day before to the
landlord of this vile hovel, for he granted no delay. Foul
and pestilent as the dens were, they were in eager demand
among the wretched waifs and strays of the mighty city,
and it was a case of pay or go — pay or be turned out, sick,
dying, or dead, into the streets.

Since then Meg Summers had not tasted food. Her baby
died in her arms in the night, its last faint cry being for the
nourishment she could not give it.

For hours it lay quiet and still in her weak arms, and
when the first faint light fought its way through the dirt and
filth of Balder's-gardens and fell upon its pinched and
waxen face she saw that it was dead.

And the man tossed to and fro on the rags, and mur-
mured in his sleep of the old days when they had a snug
little shop, and the customers called his wife " Pretty Mrs.
Summers."

So she was pretty, and no one knew it better than Jem,
who was never so proud as when they went to Hampstead
or the Green Lanes on Sunday and the folks turned round
and looked at her.

Ah, that was all long, long ago. Before trade got bad

A FLANNEL PETTICOAT 17

and Jem borrowed that £50, and gave a bill of sale, and
then became ill and couldn't attend to business, and trade
fell off and the instalments were not kept up, and at last the
vultures swooped down upon their prey, and swept away
all he had in the world for a balance of £20.

Then the struggle began. It was a hard fight for life,
and Jem was consumptive and got worse and worse, and at
last was too weak to fight at all, and Meg had the baby, and
fell ill herself, and so they drifted down till they got to
Balder's-gardens, and paid three shillings a week for
the death-trap they now lived — lived ! say rather died by
inches — in.

At first Jem got is. 3d. a day for walking about the streets
dressed up as a sailor with a theatrical board on his back.

Poor sailor ! The theatre people gave him the suit, but
it was cut low down, to show the chest, like a blue-jacket's
should be, and the cold winds soon made an end of his
being a sailor, and though the suit kept his body warm he
had to take it off at night and put on his own threadbare
rags.

When he couldn't move, but was taken for death, and lay
with a hacking cough and a wasting body on the heap of
rags, Meg tried to go out and earn a penny, and the baby
, was nursed by its dying father.

But Meg earned so little she had to part with her clothes

to get sufficient food for Jem, and at last she got so shabby

' and wretched the only work she could do was taken from

her. She had sunk too low to be employed by respectable

people.

The cruel demon of starvation came nearer and nearer.
Her child fell ill, and she tried to hide the worst from the
poot heart-broken wreck of humanity whose life was ebbing

1.8, THREE BRASS BALLS.

fast in the foul damp corner where he lay and starved — and
thought.

He pretended not to be hungry, he said that food made
him sick.

It was a noble lie.

A fierce hunger and a wild thirst added to the spasms of
pain which he endured without a murmur.

The craving for food he conquered, the burning thirst he
could not.

When he cried aloud for drink, at first Meg brought him
water — water from the foul reservoir which supplies these
festering dens — water which is full of nameless abomina-
tions, which is more deadly than the costly poison of the
Borgias — the water which God gives freely and which man
in his vile greed has made a terror and a curse.*

The poor wretch turned, parched and feverish as he was,
from the foul-smelling liquid, and then Meg brightened up
suddenly, and asked him if he would like some tea.

She pawned something, Heaven knows what. Perhaps,
God help her! some little rag that she thought the dying
baby at her breast might spare for its dying father's sake,
and got him the tea.

How he enjoyed the poor mixture which she brought in

a broken jug from the coffee-shop opposite the Gardens !

She couldn't make any herself. There were no coals, no

kettle, no anything— not even water that she could touch.

It revived him and nerved him, and gave him new

* The locality inhabited by these people was recently visited, and was more
horrible in fact than the writer has here made it atroear ti,„

. i 3 ^ 3-j.- v.- u -x • -j. • fi>=M. J- ne water supply

existed under conditions which it is quite impossible to describe V t .
of these dilapidated rookeries over forty people were living anfl \i~ , * ,, -■
„ ... , pi it. » „«„i, tile landlord

realised the sum of ±1 15s. a week.

A FLANNEL PETTICOAT 19

strength, vile wash as it was, and he left some at the bottom
of the jug and made Meg drink it, and kissed her.

Now again to-day she sees the thirst is on him, and she
promises him the tea.

For a crust or two for him and herself she has stripped
her poor limbs of almost everything. The last remnant she
has to keep her from the pinching cold is an old flannel
petticoat which a good soul gave her where last she
worked.

She kisses her husband, covers the poor dead baby
reverently with a tattered apron, and goes out into the cruel
blast.

" I'll be back, dear, directly," she says at the door ; then
shuffles away as fast as her weak limbs will carry her.

She runs into a dark passage in the Gardens, slips the
petticoat off, wraps it in a piece of newspaper she has
brought with her, and hastens to the last haven of poverty.
With a beating heart she dives past the three brass balls
into one of the pawnbroker's dark little boxes, and puts the
parcel down. She half fears it is so old and worn they will
refuse it.

The assistant knows her. She has come from time to
time with her wardrobe, yielding it up bit by bit, and he can
read her story. He has seen many a home go, and he
knows by the order in which articles come what is reckless
unthrift and what is absolute misery.

He is a decent-hearted fellow ; he pities her. He just
tears a bit of the paper aside and looks at the contents.
" How much, missus? "

" The most you can, sir," says Meg, eagerly ; "the most
you can." Then she trembles, waiting for her fate.

The pawnbroker's assistant looks at her poor pinched

20 THREE BRASS BALLS.

face for a moment, then at the blinding snow driving against
the window-pane.

He hesitates a moment, then makes out a ticket, and
flings the pledge behind the counter.

But he doesn't go to the till for the money ; he fumbles a
second or two in his pocket and flings half-a-crown on the
counter.

" There you are, missus. Now then, mum, what's for
you ? "

This to a drunken Irishwoman, who has tumbled in with
a bundle of clothes under her arm.

Meg can hardly believe her eyes. Half-a-crown for her
poor worn-out old rag. She stammers something, and
rushes out of the shop. The joy is almost too much for
her, and the tears stream down her poor, thin face.

It is a wonderful advance on such a rag, and Meg may
well be astonished. She was more astonished still when
she looked at the ticket and found it was made out for
fourpence.

Then she knew that God had moved even the heart of a
pawnbroker's assistant to pity her misery, and she looked
up at the lowering heavens standing under the shadow of
the golden balls, and her lips murmured a blessing on her
benefactor.

She hurried along as fast as she could, for she had
nothing on now but her thin shawl, her threadbare, ragged
cotton dress, and a few old thin rags, the patched and
worthless remains of what had been clothes once.

The bitter cold cut her to the heart, and weak with long
vigils and the want of food, the strong wind almost took
away her senses. It seemed as though she must sit d
somewhere and give up, shut her eyes, and let the snow and

A FLANNEL PETTICOAT. 21

wind do their worst. But she clutched her half-crown and
thought of Jem, lying and moaning in their wretched home
all alone, and of what the bright silver piece would buy him,
and she took courage and struggled on.

Only for a little way. The cold blowing on to her fore-
head made her head so queer — O so queer. Everything
was going round — houses, streets, cabs, and people — O so
fast, and the snow, too, seemed like a white circle, and the
people were black dots in it.

Meg staggered up against some railings and she clutched
them — she tried to stand still. O, if the streets wouldn't
whirl round her so fast she should be better.

How strange it all was. She wanted to get home to Jem.
Now the ground heaved up to her and sank down. She
was as light as air. She was going up, up, up into the sky,
and everything was dancing for joy.

"Jem! J !"

The word died on her lips, her head went down upon her
breast, and she sank down a huddled-up mass of rags upon
the snowy pavement, and the half-crown dropped from her
clenched fingers and rolled away into the gutter's half-
frozen slush.

T* vfi *f» *F" 1*

" Now then, missus — none o' this ! "

The policeman got no answer. There was something
breathing in the rags he bent over, but it had no voice.

" What's the matter ? " asked an elderly ruddy-faced
gentleman, as he elbowed his way through a crowd of idlers,
who had gathered about the spot.

" Only a woman, sir," said the policeman.

"Drunk?"

" I dessay. Here, missus, come — arn't you well ? "

22 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The policeman tried to pull Meg up. She never opened
her eyes. Catching hold of her wrist the pawn-ticket fell
from her hand.

The policeman read it.

" Ah ! " he said. " Guessed as much. Pawned her
petticoat for fourpence and got drunk with the money.
That's about it."

" Dreadful ! " muttered the old gentleman ; " shocking !
The poor are shamefully improvident. What are you going
to do with her ? "

The policeman had decided what to do without being
asked. Presently the stretcher came, and Meg was carried
off to the station as a drunken woman found in the streets,
and was put in a cell.

In an hour the police-surgeon arrived, and was having a
chat with the inspector and a warm at the fire, when the
inspector remembered there was a woman insensible in one
of the cells.

"There was a woman brought in drunk just now, doctor,"
he said, " I think perhaps you had better have a look at
her."

The doctor went. He didn't have to look long to see
what was the matter with Meg. She was only dead-that
was all.

Hunger and cold had done their work, and the poor weak
loving heart had stopped for ever.

That evening, at dinner a ni^o ,-jj ,i . ,

,, c L , ° ' .. ' a mce old gentleman with a

ruddy face told his wife how he'd seen a woman lying in
the streets who had actually pawned her flannel petticoat
and got dead drunk with the money.

And in the parish mortuary, cold and stiff witV, 1,

.1,1 f ', n her glazed

eyes upturned, and her poor rags frozen and filthy • u

A FLANNEL PETTICOAT 23

stain of the slush, lay the hapless wretch whose errand of
love had terminated so miserably.

*****

Jem Summers waited and waited. The afternoon waned
and night came on, and still no Meg. He called her with
his feeble voice, and never a sound answered him. Once
he fell off in a fitful sleep, and woke thinking he heard her
breathing in a corner of the room.

He crept out of the rags and crawled painfully across the
filthy floor, dabbling with his hands in the damp and decay,
and trying to find where she lay.

Presently he came upon the cold dead body of his child,
and touched it.

In his weakness a great terror came upon him — a terror
of being alone with death. "Meg! " he cried; " Meg!
where are you?"

He knew something dreadful must have happened. She
must be dead. O God, if she were dead he was alone in
the world — alone and dying, with never a voice that he
knew to speak the last farewell to him.

He couldn't stop there. He had a vague fear even of
the dead child, though it was his own.

He would go out. He would go into the street, and look
for her.

The man was mad now — mad with grief, despair, and
terror.

The excitement gave him a strength long foreign to his
limbs.

He had only a few rags about his body ; he seized the
heap in the corner and flung them about him, and tottered
into the alley, and so out into the street.

The people in the Gardens saw him go by. " Hullo ! "

24 THREE BRASS BALLS.

said one, " there's another one mad with the fever ; who's
that ? " Nobody knew, nobody cared. The shout of de-
lirium and the wild action of the maniac were common
enough in Balder's-gardens.

Sometimes the folks that ran about shrieking and brand-
ishing weapons were only drunk, sometimes they were mad ;
Balder's-gardens didn't much care which it was.

Jem Summers rushed along shouting for Meg. Nobody
stopped him in the Gardens, but out in the street a police-
man saw him, heard him shrieking, and gave chase.

It was a weird, strange sight, the wild figure in the loath-
some rags rushing madly through the gaslit streets, now
up this turning, now down that, the people standing aside
to let the madman pass ; none knowing what weapon he
carried in his hand.

At last the policeman came up close to him and clutched
him.

With a wild yell the maniac tore himself loose and
plunged across the road.

At that moment a heavily-laden waggon turned the
corner swiftly.

*****
" Dash it all ! " said the police-surgeon, " that's two fatal
cases I've had to-day. Poor devil ! What a rum creature
he looks! Better put him in the deadhouse with the
woman."

So it came about that side by side in the dismal parish
deadhouse lay Jem Summers and his wife. No one knew
that a strange chance had united them in death.

They were buried as nameless and unknown. Wh
would trouble to find out the history of two such r A

wretches as these dead outcasts? And by-and-b th

A FLANNEL PETTICOAT. 25

papers came out with a beautifully harrowing paragraph of
a dead baby found in a den in Balder's-gardens, whose
wretched parents had decamped and left it.

This is not a nice story or a pretty story. The stories
of the ragged flannel petticoats that are pawned on a bitter
winter's day are not pretty as a ri^e.

Pledge III.
A DIAMOND RING.

It was brought in on a very foggy night, and just as the
pawnbroker was closing. It was quite a gentleman, who
came in quietly, drew his glove off, removed the ring, and
asked ten pounds on it.

The money was lent directly. It was only a gipsy ring
for the little finger, with a single stone, but it was worth
treble that amount.

The gentleman gave the name of John Smith, put the
duplicate and the gold into his pocket together, and walked
out into the fog. A little way up the street a four-wheeled
cab was waiting, and the face of a lady deeply veiled was
peering anxiously trom the window.

The gentleman jumped in, saying to the driver, " London
Bridge as quick as you can." The man whipped his horse,
and away they went jolting over the London stones.

" It's the most stupid thing in the world, my darling,"
said the gentleman presently, to his companion ; " in the
hurry and confusion I came away without any ready
money."

The lady was alarmed. She had the appearance of
having been in a terrible state of agitation for some time
past.

" Will that cause any delay ? — any "

The gentleman took her hand reassuringly. « \ktu *.
frightened goose it is, to be sure ! Not a bit. p V e bor A

A DIAMOND RING. 27

ten pounds of a — of a friend. I've letters of credit with
me and my cheque-book, but like a stupid I put all my
bank-notes in the portmanteau, and that's gone on
and registered by now, and I couldn't open it at the
station."

" Do you think we shall be seen by anyone at the
station ? "

" Not a chance of it. If we'd gone by the mail route,
it's ten to one we might have had a fellow passenger who
would have recognised one or other of us. That's why I
chose Newhaven and Dieppe."

" Oh, Hubert, if he comes after us and there is a scene,
I shall die."

"My dear, how can he? He won't leave the House till
after midnight. It is sure to be a late sitting, and by the
time he gets home and finds the little bird flown, we shall
be half-way across the Channel."

The lady clasped the young man's arm and looked up
into his face with earnest, pleading eyes.

" Hubert, you will be faithful and true to me ? I have
sacrificed all for you. If you betray my trust, I shall die."

The young man flung his arm around the woman's waist
and drew her closer to him, till her head rested on his
shoulder. Then he stooped down and, raising her veil,
kissed her trembling lips passionately.

" My darling, trust in me. Your new life begins to-night.
From this hour the arm that enfolds you is sacred to you,
and you alone, for ever."

*****

At London Bridge the Newhaven and Dieppe train was
up at the platform.

A lady deeply veiled and leaning on the arm of Mr. John

23 THREE BRASS BALLS.

Smith passed through the barrier and took her seat in a
first-class carriage labelled " Reserved."

The gentleman saw her comfortably seated in the far
corner, and then, bidding her not be nervous, hurried back
to the platform.

He looked about for a minute; then a man, who appeared
to be a gentleman's servant, came up and touched his hat.

" Is it all right, Griffiths? " asked Mr. Smith, drawing the
man aside.

" Yes, my lord. The luggage is all in, and registered in
the name of Smith. Here's the ticket."

" Right. Now you know what to do. Get full particu-
lars of what happens, find out all you can from the servants,
wire me at once, and then come over by the mail to-morrow
night."

" Yes, my lord."

"Oh, by-the-by, Griffiths, I came away without any loose
cash, and had to pawn my ring for the fare."
" Nonsense, my lord ! "

The idea of his lordship having to pawn anything was so
ludicrous, that in spite of the gravity of the present situa-
tion Griffiths burst out all over broad grins.

Even Mr. Smith, who was called " My lord," smiled as he
said, " Indeed I did, Griffiths. You had better take the
ticket and get it out to-morrow, and bring it with you.
The cheque I gave you this afternoon will cover it."
" Yes, my lord."

Mr. Smith fumbled about in his pockets, first in one then
in the other, but nowhere was the ticket to be found.

" Dash it all! I must have dropped it in the cab or in
getting out."

Everywhere that it was possible for the ticket to be Mr.

A DIAMOND RING. 29

Smith felt, and he was still rummaging among papers,
letters, keys, and pocket-books when a bell rang, and the
inspector at the barrier called out —

" Any more for the boat train ? "

Mr. Smith ceased fumbling in his pockets, buttoned up
his coat, gave a few hurried instructions to his valet — for
such was the honourable position Mr. Griffiths held — and
then with a last " Mind you do exactly what I've told you,"
dashed through the barrier and took his seat in the reserved
compartment opposite the veiled lady.

The train steamed out of the station and rushed along
the iron road into the night, carrying with it many an actor
in some weird life drama.

And as it started on its swift journey to the sea, Mr.
Griffiths stood and looked after it, and murmured —

" Won't there be a jolly rumpus in London to-morrow
over this night's work ! "

* * * * *

The House of Commons sat until one o'clock in the
morning. At that hour the pleasant little political club
which amuses itself with the affairs of the nation broke up,
and the great majority of the members made their way
home.

Mr. Charles Tredennick, M.P., leaning back in his
brougham, and being whirled rapidly towards Belgravia,
was not very happy in his mind. He idolised his wife and
children, and had all his life found his greatest delight in his
domestic circle. It was over that circle that of late the
clouds had gathered.

He was terribly troubled in his mind about his wife.

He was not a jealous man, but the persistent attentions
of a certain noble lord to Mrs. Tredennick had been ob-

30 THREE BRASS BALLS.

served by others. Everything that a man could do to make
a woman happy he had done, but latterly a coldness had
sprung up between them. Sometimes he blamed himself
for his uneasiness. He felt that it was an insult to her to
believe that a woman surrounded with every safeguard, and
the mother of three beautiful little children, could ever
listen for a moment to the voice of the tempter.

He called himself an old fool for being frightened of a
dandy — a vain, empty-headed lady-killer, and determined to
think no more of it.

But in spite of himself the horrible thought of danger
would present itself. To-night or rather this morning, as
he neared his home, the desponding fit was on him, and he
could not shake it off.

His wife's conduct had altered strangely. His lordship
had ceased his noticeable attentions, it was true, but he had
come upon his wife once or twice with tears in her eyes.
Once he found her sobbing by the bedside of her eldest
daughter, a sweet child of seven, who was weak and ailing,
and at other times she had seemed strangely agitated, and
had avoided him when he had tried to talk with her.

Arrived at home he went straight to the drawing-room,
expecting to find his wife there. The room was in dark-
ness. The maid passed him on the staircase.

" Parker, has your mistress gone to bed?"

" No, sir, mistress is out."

" Out ! "

" Yes, sir. There is a note for you in your study."

A note ! What could it mean ? His face went white as
death. His heart almost stood still.

Recovering himself, lest the girl should suspect something
he tottered rather than walked to his study.

A DIAMOND RING. 31

There on his desk lay a letter. The handwriting was
hers, but how her hand had trembled !

A sick, giddy feeling came over him as with trembling
fingers he tore it open to read his fate : —

" My Husband, — Forget me, I am unworthy of your great
love. Tell my children I am dead. I can bear this hideous
mockery no longer. Proclaim my shame to the world, and
leave me free as I leave you. — Your unfaithful wife, DORA."

With a wild cry of anguish, Charles Tredennick buried
his face in his hands and sobbed like a child.

*****

" Dora, for the children's sake I ask it."

The speaker was Mr. Tredennick. Those who had not
seen him lately might have doubted it.

The terrible shock of his wife's flight had added ten
years to his appearance.

He had found out all in time, had followed the guilty
pair, and surprised them in their quiet apartments in the
Avenue de la Reine, Champs Elysees, which they occupied
as Mr. and Mrs. John Smith.

At first the young nobleman, seeing who his visitor was,
had been taken by surprise and had lost his self-possession,
but gradually his habitual composure returned, and he sat
calmly waiting until, the interview between husband and
wife being ended, he might hear what arrangements were
necessary for that satisfaction which injured husbands have
a right to demand.

Charles Tredennick took no notice of the destroyer of
all he held dearest in life ; he spoke only to the woman who
was the mother of his children.

She, too, had been terrified at first, and her face was
ghastly white.

-12 THREE BRASS BALLS.

"Dora," he said again, "do you hear me? Nothing is
known by the world yet. For the sake of our children,
whose future your shame will taint, come home with me."

Slowly the woman raised her eyes and looked her husband
in the face : —

"No. I cannot. It is too late."

" It is not too late. For your sake and the children's I
will play a comedy. For them and for you I will still before
the world be your trusting, loving husband. I will forgive
and forget all. The dictates of love shall silence the voice
of honour and of self-respect. Come back to my roof."

"Never!"

" You wish to be free — free to marry this — this scoundrel!"

The young aristocrat sprang from his seat with a flushed
face. Then with an effort he conquered his passion, and
said quietly —

"You have a right to insult me, Mr. Tredennick: use
that right to its fullest extent."

Mrs. Tredennick came across the room to her lover and
took his arm.

" Listen, Charles Tredennick. You are a good man and
I am a wicked woman. I weighed all the consequences of
my act before I left your house. I have never loved you—
I love this man. As you are so noble and so generous,
leave me free to marry him."
" And the children ? "

"Will be saved from the contamination of my presence.
Sue for your divorce, for their sake as for mine. Their
mother will then be a nobleman's wife, not a nobleman's
mistress."

" What this lady says is quite right, Mr. Tredennick.
What sin and shame there is your generous act would never

A DIAMOND RING.

undo. Leave the lady free, and I will make her my lawful
wife before God and man."

" On your hon — "

Charles Tredennick stopped, and a bitter smile crossed
his lips : —

" On your oath, I should say, my lord."

" On my oath."

"Enough. Dora, if aught in my conduct has brought
you to this wretched act, may God forgive me. I would
sooner have seen you cold and lifeless in your coffin than
see you as you are now. Henceforward, we are dead to
each other. The children you have forfeited are mine alone.
I will, with God's help, shield them from the consequences
of their mother's act."

He walked across the room. At the door he turned and
looked earnestly at his lost wife.

" Dora, farewell. You shall have the liberty you desire,
and may you never regret the choice you have made.
Your future is in God's hands and your own. Good-bye."
*****

"Tredennick v. Tredennick and " was the talk of

London for more than the usual nine days. Then it was
forgotten in a fresh scandal.

The man for whom Dora Tredennick had sacrificed
herself redeemed his word, and wedded her directly the
divorce was pronounced, and before the world she seemed
a happy woman.

But she had been a mother, and now that the mad passion
which had carried her away had cooled with time, she
missed the soft caressing hands of her children.

Her new husband was as kind and gentle as his nature
and his training would let him be. He did not altogether

C

34 THREE BRASS BALLS.

regret his chivalrous action (his own words, not mine), but he
didn't care to settle down to humdrum turtle-dove business,
especially as at times he found, though the Church had
given them its blessing, they were not received everywhere
with open arms. He was, of course, but the wife was
occasionally cold-shouldered.

Once or twice his pride had a severe wound in this way,
and he began to think he had made a great sacrifice. Her
ladyship, too, was in a bad state of health, and had grown
dull, and was not a cheerful companion. He got discon-
tented and had fits of blue devils, and so to drive them
away took to his old haunts and companions again.

One of his old haunts was a little theatre at the West
where the ladies were more remarkable for their splendid
figures than for their brilliant talents.

One night at this house, the hundredth night of a piece
was celebrated by a supper, at which rank and beauty were
lavishly represented. The gentlemen contributed the rank,
and the ladies the beauty. Talent was invited, but most of
it had a cold and couldn't come.

Lord sat at supper by a dashing young lady who was

one of the goddesses in the mythological burlesque which
was in the bills. She was a talkative goddess, and was ex-
tremely confidential with her neighbour.

While she was chatting, she made a liberal use of her
arms and hands to show her bracelets and rings.

One ring particularly attracted the attention of his lord-
ship.

It was a gentleman's diamond ring, and he recognised it
in a moment.

" By Jove, where did you get that from ? "

The question was so abrupt the girl was flung off her guard.

A DIAMOND RING. 35

" Father picked the ticket up in his cab ever so long ago,
and I took it t?ut."

There was a roar of laughter from the young ladies
opposite. " Father's cab " was a secret which the goddess
had not hitherto divulged to her fellow deities.

She waxed wroth and her face went red.

" You needn't grin and show your false teeth, Martha
Higgins, as calls yourself Evar de Mountmerency. Your
father's a chimbley-sweep."

There was a cry of indignation from the De Montmorency,
and a glass of champagne was hurled in the face of the
slanderous goddess.

The gentlemen jumped up, the ladies shrieked, and as.
there seemed every probability of a free fight, his lordship,,
not knowing what might be the end of it, thought it prudent
to withdraw and leave the question of his ring till he had
another opportunity of seeing Miss Dolly Dalrymple (the-
goddess) under more auspicious circumstances.

*****

A time of peril was approaching for Lady . She

was about to become a mother. As the hour of her travail:
drew near a dread terror fell upon her that she should not
survive it.

She felt miserable, lonely, and ill at ease. The loving;
arm that should have been hers to lean on was rarely near
her now. Her husband sought his pleasures far from home.

Sitting in her room after he had given her a careless kiss
and gone off to his midnight haunts, w r ith a hint he should
not be home till " late," she thought of how differently her
other husband had treated her at such a time.

Her heart was filled with a strange yearning to see him
once again — to see him and her children.

36 THREE BRASS BALLS.

She felt so lonely now. Oh, If she could only have felt
the clasp of his loving hand ; if she could only have heard
her little children murmur her name. But that was im-
possible. A yawning abyss separated the old life from the
new. Her husband was away with his gay companions, her
child had yet to be born.

She had asked her husband to stay with her this evening.
He had muttered a few words — said he had an engagement.
" Wouldn't to-morrow do ? "
" Oh yes, to-morrow would do."

She sighed as he closed the door, and her eyes filled with
tears. Presently she moved across the room to get a book,
and lying on the floor just where her husband had stood she
saw a crumpled piece of paper.
She picked it up.

It was a note, scented with patchouli, and written in a big
round scrawl : —

" Dere Ole boy, — Me and Lotty Vaversour gives a supper

tonite at the G Resteront. The Markis and Gustus

and Lord Halfrid is comin will you make one and then we
can tork about the dimind ring as you want back agin &
come to tirms. Come to my dressin room tonite early to
say if youre comin as hutherwise I shall have to ast sum-
boddy else to make up the partey.— Yours ever faithfull
Dolly Dalrymple."

Her ladyship had no idea that this insolent familiarity
meant nothing. She did not know that her husband had
merely asked this young woman to sell him back the
diamond ring which had accidentally come into her posses-
sion, and that the jade had seized the opportunity to show
him off at a supper party to her male and female friends as
one of her " conquests."

A DIAMOND RING 37

The poor lady, wretched and desponding, sick at heart
and full of vague apprehensions concerning the terrible
ordeal through which she was so soon to pass, read in it only
that her husband had given a diamond ring to some worth-
less woman, that he wanted it back, and that on the night
when she had asked him to stay with her and cheer her
drooping heart he had gone out to sup with this creature
and her companions.

She read the note through, then dropped it as though its
touch were contagion. She buried her face in her hands and
moaned aloud, " O merciful God ! It is for a man like this
that I have sacrificed so much."

Late that night a doctor was sent for in all haste.

Up in the great bed-room, surrounded by all the pomps
of the upholsterer's art, my lady lay, with a white face and
restless eyes.

She was very ill.

The attendants moved noiselessly about the room, the
doctor with a grave face gave whispered directions, and
came again and again to the bedside of the patient.

The crisis was passed, and by her side there lay a feeble
little mite of humanity that every now and then raised its
tiny voice.

She would have it there — there, near her, where she
could touch it.

She had said as much once, but now she could not raise
her voice. She only spoke with her eyes.

It was far into the night, and the doctor looked
anxiously at his watch. He had sent for her ladyship's
husband, for he knew that the poor creature was sinking —
that, in spite of all that skill could do, her life was ebbing
fast.

38 THREE BRASS BALLS.

They had sent to his lordship's club, but he was not
there. No one knew where to go.

The dying wife, could she have spoken, might have said
where he was, but she made no sign. Only the sorrowful
eyes turned now and then from the baby by her side to the
door, as though waiting for someone to enter.

At five in the morning he came home. His man told
him down stairs what was the matter, and he had a basin of
water brought and dashed his head into it, for the Dalrymple
supper had been a " wet " one.

Then, with a great effort steadying his disobedient limbs,
he climbed the stairs and stac^ered into the bed-room.

He was shocked at the news he had heard ; it had
sobered his brain, but his legs and arms were drunk still.

He rolled a little as he crept on tiptoe to the bedside where
the woman who had given up so much for him lay dying.

She opened her eyes and looked at him with a strange
look that will haunt him all his life.

It was not reproach, it was not anger ; it was a look of
unutterable despair.

He laid his hand gently on her pillow, and as he did so
her eyes fixed themselves on the diamond ring that glistened
on his finger.

Speech never returned to her. In the morning she was
unconscious, and at noon she was dead.

In her last hours it is probable that her whole life came
back to her, and, sinking into eternity, she saw what she
had lost.

And strangely enough, the diamond ring which had been
pawned on the evening of her guilty flight, and of which
she knew nothing, was the Nemesis that came to her death-
bed side, and gave the last pang to her broken heart.

Pledge IV.
A SUIT OF BLACK.

JACK WORRALL woke up very queer and miserable.

It was Sunday morning, the morning to which he
always looked forward with pleasure after a hard week's
work.

Generally he was up with the daylight and off to the
public baths, where he had a nice invigorating swim, and
felt clean and Sundayfied, and then he came back and had
breakfast with the missus, put on his Sunday clothes, and
went out for a walk with his chums while the missus got the
dinner ready.

Sunday was a day of rest to him, and he enjoyed it better
than any gentleman in the land did. The close, grimy
atmosphere of the workshop was exchanged for the beauti-
ful pure air and the green fields and the blue sky. On fine
Sundays Jack always got a little way out to the Cockney
country, a poor, dirty, withered, crowded country, it is true,
but still beautiful to the eyes of the city toiler in close
workshop pent.

Jack didn't drink. He didn't count it a virtue, but he
had never had the appetite. He didn't like beer, and he
couldn't afford wine.

Sometimes on a Sunday when Jack was out for a walk with
his mates they would ask him to come and be a bona-jide
traveller, and have a " beer."

" No, thanks, lads," Jack would say. " You go and have

40 THREE BRASS BALLS.

your beer ; I'll stop outside and have another mouthful of
champagne."

The fresh air was Jack's champagne, and a right good
brand it is. It runs through your veins and quickens your
pulse. It sets your cheeks tingling pleasantly, and makes
you feel so light and merry, and there's no headache
after it.

O glorious vintage of God's champagne, the pure sweet
air, even you are becoming an expensive luxury now, and
we must go farther and farther afield to find you.

Now, this Sunday morning, Jack, who generally woke
refreshed from his slumber and jumped out of bed to see
what the weather was like, felt very strange and queer.
He had a dim recollection of something unpleasant having
occurred the previous evening, and suddenly the scene came
back to him.

He had had a terrible quarrel with his wife ; the first real
thunderstorm had disturbed the atmosphere of his home.

She lay by his side, still asleep. She was breathing
heavily, and Jack sat up in bed and looked at her face with
a pained, worried look.

" Missus," he said presently, nudging her with his elbow,
" how are ye this morning ? "

The woman opened her eyes and looked at him stupidly.

" All right, Jack, only my head aches."

" Well, lie in bed, my lass, and I'll get up and make ye
something before I go to the baths."
"Thank you, Jack."

Mrs. Worrall turned her face to the wall again, and closed
her eyes, and Jack slipped on his working clothes and went
down into the kitchen.

He lit the fire and tidied up a bit ; then, when the water

A SUIT OF BLACK. 41

boiled, he made a nice cup of hot strong tea, and took it to
the bed-room.

" Here you are, old lady, drink this, and you'll be all
right."

Mrs. Worrall took the proffered cup and raised it eagerly
to her lips.

Then Jack, bidding her make haste up and see to his
breakfast and put his Sunday clothes out, went off to the
public baths.

Directly he was out of the room Mrs. Worrall began to
moan.

She was a comely woman of about two-and-thirty, dark,
and broad-shouldered — not at all the sort of woman you
would expect to be nervous, but her hand trembled as she
put down the cup her husband had given her.

"Lor', how bad I do feel!" she moaned. "I feel all
shivery shakey, and my head's regular splitting."

Mrs. Worrall stooped down and drew from a narrow place
between the bed and the wall something that had evidently
been put there to be out of sight.

It was a flat bottle, half full of spirit.

" I must have a drop," sighed Mrs. Worrall, " or I'll never
be able to get up."

She poured out a little into the tea, and then drank the
mixture off.

She felt revived, and smacked her lips.

"Won't there be a row when he finds out about his best
clothes ! " she muttered, hurrying on her things. " Well, I
can't help it. He must row."

*l* *X* 'I* *1*

Jack came back from the baths and found his breakfast
ready.

42 THREE BRASS BALLS.

Generally it was the most comfortable meal of the week,
this Sunday morning breakfast, for he had time to sit and
talk to his wife, and read her all the interesting little bits
out of the paper.

But this morning the conversation flagged. Jack hadn't
the heart to talk, for the scene of the previous night was
uppermost in his mind.

His wife had gone out to market and come home drunk.
Yes, absolutely drunk. He had noticed lately that some-
times of an evening she was a little flurried and excited,
and didn't seem to know quite what she was doing, and
once or twice he had been on the point of advising her to
give up her beer, as he thought it muddled her, but last
night was a revelation.

His Polly that he was so proud of, that was always clean
and neat and respectable, and " quite the lady" in her ways,
had come home drunk.

Jack spoke out then, kindly but firmly. He had a horror
of drunken people ; even with his companions if one of them
got the worse for liquor he always wanted to run away ; and
to have the horror forced upon him under his own roof was
too much.

When Mrs. Worrall, with a flushed face, began to
argue with him in a silly, maudlin way, Jack got
rightdown angry. Then she got angry too, and raised
her voice and screamed at him, and at last there was a
real row.

Jack took his wife by the shoulders and looked straight
in her eyes.

" Look here, missus. Once, and for all, I won't have it.
I know what Saturday night drinking means ; it's the
beginning of ruin. It means the roof off our heads and the

A SUIT OF BLA CK. 43

clothes off our backs. If you spend your money that way,
I shall do the marketing myself."

Mrs. Worrall stared stupidly at her husband, and then
had a good cry, which seemed to do her good, for presently
she settled down into sulky quietude, and, clearing away the
supper things, went up to bed.

Now Jack remembered all this as he sipped his tea and
read his newspaper. He found himself picking out all the
police news about drunkenness, and he couldn't get the
subject out of his head.

When breakfast was over, he put down the paper and
went up stairs to dress and go out. Perhaps a walk to
Highgate would do him good.

"Now for it!" said Mrs. Worrall, as she heard him
tramping about the little room overhead. " Oh dear ! I do
feel so frightened."

She was all of a tremble now, and was obliged to bring
out a little bottle from her pocket and have a wee sip to
steady her nerves.

"Polly!"

It was her husband calling down the stairs.

" Yes, dear."

" What have you done with my clothes ? I can't find 'em
anywhere."

What could she say ? — her heart was in her mouth, and
the bottle was there too, just to give her voice to speak
with.

"Jack!"

" Yes."

" Come down here ; I want to tell you something."

Jack came down with a worried look on his face. What
did it all mean ?

44 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The woman went up to him and fawned about him like a
dog who has done wrong and expects to be punished fawns
about its master.

She took his hand, and said in a trembling voice, " Jack,
I was drunk last night ! "

"Well, I know that, worse luck."

" Jack, dear, it was trouble made me have too much. I
was in great trouble last night."

Jack WorralPs honest face grew graver and graver.
" Polly, my lass, if a woman's in trouble she should go to
her husband, not to the public-house. Come, tell me all
about it."

" Jack, I've been spending the money you gave me
stupidly, and when I wanted new things I had them of the
tallyman, and I got in debt, and last week if I hadn't paid a
pound they'd have come to you, and I — I pawned your
clothes, Jack, for the money, intending to get them out
before Sunday."
"What!"

" Indeed, Jack, dear, I did mean to. Mrs. Brown, next
door, promised to lend me a pound faithfully, and then she
couldn't, and I couldn't get your clothes out, and I was so
worried I had the drink."

Jack Worrall felt something swelling in his throat. Had
it come to this ? His Polly, his good, honest Polly, owing
money to tallymen, deceiving her husband, borrowing of her
neighbours, pawning her husband's clothes, and drinking to
drown her trouble ? The tears trickled down his face.
Why, this is how those dreadful cases began that he read
about in the Sunday newspapers, the ruined homes, the
suicides, the murders. Oh, it was too horrible. What had
he done to deserve this ?

A SUIT OF BLACK. 45

Polly was touched by her husband's tears, and she began
to sob too.

"Oh, Jack, say you forgive me! I wouldn't have done
it if I'd ha' known you'd grieve so."

Jack jumped up and dashed his tears away with his fist.

" Look here, Polly. I don't care for the clothes — curse
the clothes ! — it's you I'm thinkin' about. You've taken
the first step on the road to ruin, and it's along o' that
cursed drink ! There, don't howl like that. Come and kiss
me. I'll forgive you this time. But I must keep a sharp
eye on you for the future."

" What do you mean, Jack? "

" I mean this, my lass — that you've betrayed the trust I
put in you, and that I must watch you as I would my
deadliest enemy."

Jack sat at home all that Sunday in his working clothes,
and felt very miserable. Two of his mates called for him,
and he was ashamed to see them. He sent Polly to the
door to say he couldn't come, and they went off without him.

It was a fine bright day, and he longed to be out in the
pure air, but he couldn't go in his working clothes ; he knew
what his acquaintances would think directly. They would
chaff, and ask him what he'd put his Sunday "togs" up the
spout for. Jack had always been a violent denouncer of the
unthrifty habits of his class, and he couldn't have all his old
weapons turned against himself.

So he sat at home miserable and wretched. He was in
the way while the dinner was being got ready, and that
made Polly nervous, and she had a quiet turn or two at
that bottle, and somehow she got all in a muddle, and the
meat was burnt and Jack couldn't eat. Then she cried, and
he scolded, and all the afternoon neither of them spoke a

46 THREE BRASS BALLS.

word ; and at tea-time Polly tilted the kettle and scalded
her arm so badly she had to go out to the chemist's
and get some stuff to put on it, and the pain was so great
that going along, and seeing the public-houses opening, she
had to go in and get a little brandy, she felt so faint and
queer ; and while she was there she had her bottle filled.

When she got home Jack was asleep on the sofa, and so
she went up stairs and lay down on the bed and dropped
off too.

Jack woke presently, all in the pitch dark, and groped
about to find a light.

" Polly ! "

No answer. Polly had finished the bottle, and was dead
asleep.

" Polly ! Why; where the devil can she be ? "

A Sunday at home in his working clothes had played sad
havoc with Jack's temper.

"Polly!" he shouted again, with a voice to waken the
Seven Sleepers ; and still no answer.

" She must have gone into one of the neighbours'," he
muttered. " I wonder where the paraffin is.

Groping about in cupboards and corners, Jack at last
succeeded in getting the lamp and the paraffin and the
matches together.

He was very disagreeable and out of temper, and when
after all his trouble the matches wouldn't strike he felt
inclined to swear.

"Some of those blessed things that only ignite on the
box, I suppose," he said, after he'd tried the wall the sole
of his boot, the nutmeg-grater, and the mantelshelf.

The matches he had found loose without the box and he
couldn't get a light at the fire because the fire had gone out.

A SUIT OF BLACK. 47

He wasn't going to sit there in the dark till his w;fe
chose to walk herself back. He paced up and down the
room, working himself up into a rage. The miserable
Sunday had done its work. He thrust his hands into his
jacket pocket viciously — his working jacket — and there he
came upon his old clay pipe and a box of vesuvians.

Then it struck Jack he might get a light with tht.
vesuvian, by putting it to the wick. He turned back to the
table and struck a "flamer," and the lamp and the paraffin
can were there. He turned up the wick and was touching
it with the light, when the head of the flamer fell off on to
the cloth, and set it alight. Jack dashed his hand down in
a hurry to put it out, and knocked over the paraffin can.
The paraffin was alight in a moment. A stream of liquid
fire poured over the table on to the floor. Jack rushed
about trying to stamp it out, and all in vain. The wood
began to crackle, the drapery caught, the flames rose higher
and higher, the place was filled with smoke.

" Fire ! " cried Jack at the top of his voice. " Fire ! '*
And then the black smoke drove him out of the room into
the street.

The neighbours came out at his cry. By this time the
fire had spread, and the sparks were flying. The black
smoke puffed out, and through the windows the red glow o£
the fire shone.

"Anybody inside?" asked a policeman.

" No," said Jack. " The missus is out, thank God ! "

Jack Worrall was wild and excited. He wanted to get
in again and save some of his household gods, but they
wouldn't let him. Better lose all he had in the world than
his life, the neighbours told him, and held him back.

The fire spread rapidly. The crowd gathered, the next-

4 S THREE BRASS BALLS.

door neighbours began to get their goods together in the
street, the first engine came upon the scene, and then all
was shouting and yelling and confusion.

Jack Worrall, pushed back by the crowd, stood an
agonised spectator of the scene. Here was a pretty end to
his Sunday. He wondered why his missus hadn't come out.
If she was at a neighbour's she'd be sure to hear the news,
he thought. She couldn't be in the house. He went hot
and cold as the idea occurred to him. But no — that was
impossible. He'd shouted up stairs twice and received no
answer when he was trying to get a light.

Suddenly a wild cry went up from the crowd, and then a
breathless silence fell upon it.

Right through the smoke and flame they could make
out the white face of a woman. She was at the bed-room
window, her eyes starting from their sockets with horror,
her arms waving wildly, and her lips babbling incoherent
words.

She shrieked for help, she tore her hair, she foamed at
the mouth, the hot breath of the fiery death fell upon her
face, there was no escape, the lower portion of of the house
was in flames, and the staircase was impassable.
" Jump ! " shouted a fireman, " jump ! "
The neighbours brought a blanket and held it to catch
her, but the woman would not leap. Terror glued her to
the spot.

" If she stays there another minute she's a dead woman,"
said the fireman. " She'll be suffocated and fall back into
the flames."

" Where's the escape ? "

"We've sent for it, but it'll be five minutes before it's
here, and it'll be too late."

A SUIT OF BLACK. 4g

" Good God ! Why, there's two of 'em. There's a man
as well."

Yes, there were two of them in the fiery furnace now.

Jack Worrall had dashed into the burning building and
battled through the smoke and the flame to where his wife
stood shrieking and panic-stricken.

He seized her in his stalwart arms. She shrieked and
struggled and tore at his face in her mad terror, but he con-
quered her. Lifting her by main force, he raised her from
her feet and swung her to a level with the window.

The firemen had a blanket and a mattrass ready.

Jack Worrall gave one glance below, and then with a
superhuman effort forced the body of the woman through
the window, and loosing his hold let it drop.

Down it came swiftly. The crowd held its breath, then
gave a mighty cheer.

The woman was safely caught, and they were dashing
water in her face, for she had swooned.

But the man ? What of him ? Was he not going to
jump ? Yes. He had climbed out of the window ; he was
hanging on by his hands to the ledge, and his feet were
swinging in the air.

At that moment there was a shriek.

The men holding the blanket leapt back, for it was a
mass of brickwork that had fallen with a crash into the street.

At that instant Jack Worrall let go, and fell with a dull
thud among the debris on the pavement.

Three years have elapsed since Jack Worrall was burnt
out of house and home.

It was Sunday morning in Lumpton's lodging-house in
the Borough.

5" THREE BRASS BALLS.

Lumpton's lodging-house was a very respectable one of
its kind, and the proprietor prided himself on its reputation.
There was no working against the police there. Joey
Lumpton always told his customers fair and square that he
was straight, and he didn't want anybody there that wasn't.
Of course, if thieves and swindlers came with their four-
pences, they got a bed, but Joey didn't try to make them
very comfortable.

Most of the flash folks and the artful dodgers found the
moral atmosphere of Lumpton's too bracing for their deli-
cate constitutions, and so gradually they gave it the go-by,
and the company became select — as select, that is, as
you can expect in a fourpenny lodging-house.

Imagine the disgust, therefore, of Mr. Lumpton when,
just as the nobility and gentry of Blank-street, Borough,
were going to church, shrieks and oaths and yells and the
sound of blows issued from the kitchen or common room in
his establishment.

" It's that one-legged man and his drunken wife, drat
'em ! " said Mr. Lumpton, rushing down stairs to the
kitchen. " I'll turn 'em out. I won't have 'em here."

Louder grew the shrieks, and fiercer the oaths. It was
evident the one-legged gentleman and his good lady were,
to borrow a figure from the vigorous vernacular, "going it
liammer and tones."

" Jack, dear Jack, mercy ! "

It was a woman's voice.

There was a crushing blow, and then all was still.

Mr. Lumpton rushed into the kitchen.

It was the common kitchen, but the one-legged man and
his wife had it to themselves. The other lodgers had
breakfasted and gone out.

A SUIT OF BLA CK. 5 1

" Now then, what's this ? " said Mr. Lumpton. " Hullo !
this is a police job."

The woman lay where her husband had knocked her. He.
was brandishing his crutch and still livid with rage.

"This is a serious job, guv'nor," said Mr. Lumpton r
looking at the woman. " I shall send for a policeman."

"Send for one, and be hanged to you! I want to be
locked up. If I've killed her and they swing me, it'll be a
happy release for both of us."

The one-legged man had not killed his wife, but he had'
seriously injured her, and he was marched off to the station.
When she was able to give evidence he was brought before
the magistrate, but she tried to beg him off.

" It was her fault. Oh, she'd been a wicked wife to him.
She'd taken to drink and ruined him. He lost his leg
saving her life at a fire. He broke it falling into the street,
and it had to be cut off. And he'd only earned very little
since then. And all their beautiful home was burned, and:
they lost every penny they had in the world."

But there was other evidence — Mr. Lumpton's, the
doctor's, the lodgers who'd heard the man threaten her —
quite enough evidence to commit Jack Worrall for trial.

At the trial he was convicted, but not before witnesses
had told the story of his long martyrdom, and how his wife
had gradually brought him to the brink of starvation.

The last quarrel was a singular one.

Some three years ago the woman had pawned his Sunday
clothes, the fire swept away all he had, and he couldn't
raise the money to get his suit out again. He struggled
and struggled, and kept the wolf from the door, but they
had to live from hand to mouth and had no home.

Still, he managed for two years to scrape the money

D 2

52 THREE BRASS BALLS.

together to pay the interest on the ticket, which the wife
had in her pocket at the time of the fire, and so saved.

The third year came round, and again, with a vigorous
effort, Jack had saved the money for the ticket.

Saturday was the last day, and he heard of a chance job
at the docks. He went to look for it, and cave his wife the
money to pay the interest. He told her it must be paid or
he should lose his suit. He always treasured the idea that
some day he would be able to get it out again. She had
taken the money — the money he had saved by starving
himself — and spent it in drink, and he found out on Sunday
morning that all his money was wasted, and the last relic of
his prosperous days, his suit of black, was lost for ever.

And then in his rage he raised his crutch and felled her
to the ground.

rf* ?JC «P JJC JJt

Jack had a light sentence, for the provocation he had
received was taken into account, and those who had known
him in his prosperity came forward and gave him a good
character.

While he was away from her in prison a great change
came over Polly. She realised now the extent of her
wickedness. She read her shameful story in the papers, and
it was headed " A Bad Wife."

From the day when she saw his pale face disappear as he
went down stairs from the court-house she vowed, God
helping her, he should find a different woman when he came
out.

She signed the pledge, and placed herself in the hands of
a charitable apostle of temperance, who interested himself
on her behalf.

With his assistance, and the help of her husband's old

A SUIT OF BLA CK. 53

friends, whose sympathies were aroused by his misfortune,
she gradually got a little home about her.

Not a word was said to Jack by those who visited
him, only he was told that his wife was reforming, and he
was deeply thankfu. 1 .

The day came at last when Jack was free again.

She met him at the gates, neat and tidy, and as in the
dear old days, and brought him home.

Yes, home ! To two dear little rooms, cosily furnished.
And when he had got over that astonishment there was a
letter from his old employer offering him the office of time-
keeper. A man doesn't want two legs to be a timekeeper,
and of course Jack could accept it.

But when the first Sunday morning came round Jack had
the greatest surprise of all.

When he opened his eyes and got out of bed, there, on
the chair, was a new suit of black, which he found Polly had
bought by putting by the money that beer would have cost
her every day.

And when he stooped down and kissed her, she whispered
in his ear, "Jack, dear, I don't mean to pawn these." And
Jack laughed, and said, " No, Polly. If you did, and it cost
me the other leg, a whole suit would be of no use to me."

You may be sure he'd got over the loss of his leg if he
could joke about it, so we may take it that he was happy
and comfortable again at last.

So all ends happily, which is a matter for congratulation.
It is not often that stories which begin in the shadow of the
Three Brass Balls ever get out into the bright sunshine

Pledge V
A GOLD LOCKET.

Dead!

There was the name in the fatal list. What was it to her
that he died nobly, sword in hand, shouting with his last
breath to cheer his men ? What was it to her that ere the
savage foe closed in upon the devoted band he with his
good right hand had almost piled a wall of slain in front of
him ?

The people read of his brave deed, and his name was on
every tongue. The pulses of strong men beat the quicker,
and their faces flushed when they read what his British
pluck had done. Claud Brettingham's name was on every
lip, and the country rang with the story of his fate.

She heard it with the rest of the world. The news of
a battle and a great defeat came first, and then a list of the
missing and killed, with further details and the full narrative
of Claud Brettingham's heroism.

She read the account and she flushed with no pride.
There was no charm for her in the story of his prowess.
Her cheeks went ashen white, she uttered a sharp cry of
agony, and then gazed into vacancy with a look of blank
despair.

She was his wife. The man who had died, whose body
lay buried under the long grass, was her husband, her noble
handsome Claud.

And to think they had parted miserably, to think that

A GOLD LOCKET 55

he lay cold and still for evermore, and would never know
how truly she had loved him !

The history of their marriage had been a strange one.
Eleanor Mayne and Claud Brettingham had known each
other from children. The estate of the Maynes joined that
of the Brettinghams, and the families lived on terms of the
greatest intimacy.

In due course a match was talked of between Claud
and Eleanor, and by-and-by it became quite an under-
stood thing that the young folks would fall in love and
get married.

They did marry in due time, but they never fell in love.

Claud went into the Army, and Eleanor became a London
belle. They met quite as much during the season as they
used to in the country, and presently an announcement
appeared in the society journals that a marriage had been
arranged between Captain Brettingham, of the — th Foot,
and Miss Eleanor Mayne, the young beauty and heiress.

" Arranged " was a most suitable word under the cir-
cumstances. Eleanor was quite willing to oblige her parents,
but Claud tried very hard to upset the "arrangement."
He found that his mother had set her heart upon the match ;
he supposed he would have to marry some day. The girl
he would have married had he dared had disappeared in
some mysterious way, and he didn't care now much who
had him. So Claud Brettingham talked the matter over,
and at last had worked himself into such a spirit of sub-
missive martyrdom that he went to the altar on the
appointed day with much the same feelings that must have
animated the staunch old Protestants who took their burn-
ings at Smithfield in such capital part.

It wasn't a particularly happy marriage. Claud, having

56 THREE BRASS BALLS.

sacrificed himself, was inclined to wear his halo of martyr-
dom a little too conspicuously, and Eleanor, who really
didn't think it was such a terrible ordeal to be married to
her, felt piqued and spiteful. She had discovered that with
a very little effort she could love her husband passionately,
and this added fuel to the fire. If he was careless and
distant, she was cold and haughty. If he took no interest
in her pursuits, she ignored his altogether.

Once the)'' had a vulgar quarrel, just like common people
have, and Claud told her he had never loved her ; that the
only woman he had ever loved wasn't an heiress or a beauty

"Some vulgar girl," thought Mrs. Brettingham. "I'm
sure it's a pity he didn't marry her."

Thinking about this vulgar girl — she was quite sure she
was vulgar : red cheeks, golden hair, and no h's to speak
of — she became curious about her.

Claud was going out of town for three or four days. Mrs.
Brettingham gave him a parting shot.

If you should meet this young — person, that you talk of
sometimes, you'll let her know you're married now, of
course? "

Claud smiled. It wasn't an amiable smile at all.

" I shall not meet her. She disappeared long before I
married you."

" How romantic ! Well, I suppose you didn't murder her."

Claud bit his lip, bowed to his wife, and went out of the
house. When he got into the hansom that stood at the
door he kicked his hatbox. His wife's remark had annoyed
him very much.

" Poor Daisy ! " he muttered ; " if I'd had the pluck to be
a man and behave properly to you, I should be a deuced
sight happier than I am now, I dare say."

A COLD LOCKET

57

Captain Brettingham did not find matters improved on
his return home. Eleanor was deeply wounded, for she
was really in love with her husband. To hide her secret
she emphasised her expressions of indifference till they
became those of repugnance, and war breaking out at a
time when matters were at their worst, the Captain ex-
changed into a regiment going on active service, bade his
wife farewell, apologised to her for any lack of courtesy he
might have shown, hoped to find her in good health on his
return, and went over the seas to South Africa.

Eleanor held up her face to his in the hall as he stood
ready to start, and he kissed her. It was on her tongue
then to cry out how she loved him. How, if he would only
be gentler with her and a little kind, she would love him as
never woman had loved him yet. But his kiss was cold, and
the warm words were frozen on her lips.

She let him go — let him go with her heart yearning
towards him; she let him go believing he was cold and
cruel. And now he was dead. O how she had hoped that
he would return to her, and then she might tell him all and
win his love. She had pictured the meeting, the little story
that she would sob out upon his breast, and then the bright
happy days in store for them when all was mutual con-
fidence and love.

The light was crushed out of her life for ever now.
Henceforth she had to bear a double load of sorrow. She
grieved that he had died far away from her in a savage
land, and she grieved that he had died knowing not what a
wealth of love her heart had stored for him.

The days and the weeks went by, and time's hand
softened the blow, but the bitter memory of the past
haunted the young widow in her lonely house. She wanted

58 THREE BRASS BALLS.

employment, occupation, something to divert her attention
from the one gloomy thought. At last she decided that a
charitable life would suit her best. Claud Brettingham's
wife ere her mourning was two months old joined a
Protestant sisterhood whose special mission it is to nurse the
sick. The order involves no resignation of the world, no vows,
and no conspicuous garb. But the very nature of its duties
hinders the frivolous and the insincere from joining it.

So the beautiful Mrs. Brettingham disappeared from the
scene, and Sister Eleanor became famous as a gentle nurser
of the suffering poor.

3(C 5j» 5(» JJC 5J*

In the side streets of Soho there are many grimy old
houses — houses that have known better days. They are
dirty and old and ugly now, and they stand and frown at
you, and seem to say, " Why can't we tumble down and
die ? Why are we brought to shame in our old age, we
who were once run after by the rich and the great?"
There are broad staircases in many of these houses, and
large rooms, rooms where in the days of powder and patch
beauty and gallantry danced many a minuet — rooms where
beau and belle flirted and gossiped, where (ans were
waved and snuffboxes tapped while scandal passed from lip
to lip, where they gambled and drank and made merry in
those bad, wicked old times which the parrots of our era
call the " good old days."

At the door of one of the dingiest and dirtiest of these
houses a lady in deep black stands waiting admission.

She has knocked loudly at the door, but no one has
answered her. Presently a gentleman in a slouch hat and
a seedy velvet coat comes across the road, pickino- his way
through the mud gingerly, for he is in his slippers.

A GOLD LOCKET 59

Arrived safely on the kerb, slippers and all, the gentle-
man wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, gives a
loving glance at the word " absinthe " in the window of the
public-house he has just quitted, and steps politely past
the waiting lady, pushes the door open, then bows and
waits for her to enter.

" Madame is coming in ? "

" Oh, thank you. Can you tell me if this is where
Madame Obert lives ? "

"Top floor, madame."

The lady bows and passes on. The gentleman in the
slippers looks after her and mutters to himself that she is
belle femme. What wants she with the little Obert?

It is a strange house, this grimy den in Soho. It is a
chapel of ease to the Tower of Babel. Up and down the
dirty broad staircases from night to morning go weary feet
that have trodden many a foreign land ere they drifted to
the mother of cities. The gentleman of the slippers is a
Communist exile, devoted to his country and absinthe. He
employs his leisure in writing political pamphlets which are
never published, and his working hours in painting panels
for the cabinet-makers. On the second floor live a German
waiter and his wife, above them an Italian family who are
mysteriously connected with the manufacture of barometers.
There are also in the house a Pole, who is a Prince, and
lives on a long white beard and his title, and an old French
lady, who keeps cats and a diary, and is some day going to
publish a secret history of Napoleon III. which will set the
Seine on fire.

And up at the top, where the stairs are narrowest, and
where the dirt-encrusted skylight sheds the faintest,
yellowest gleam of day, lives Madame Obert, the young

6o THREE BRASS BALLS.

English widow of the French gentleman who died abroad.
Madame Obert does not live alone ; she has her little boy
with her. He is three, with the flaxen hair and the blue
eyes of the Saxon and as bonny an English face as any of
those that made the clerical gentleman of Early English
history perpetrate a bad Latin pun.

Claud Obert was not with his mother now. The kind
Italian woman had taken him to be with her children, and
he found endless delight in the quicksilver that Carlo
Manzoni, the old lady's son, put in the little barometers,
Claud knew that his poor mamma was ill, and that he must
not shout or stamp his little feet about in the passages, so
he sat and watched the big brown Carlo working and
stroking his fierce moustaches, and was quiet and good.

The lady in black reached the top floor, and weary and
out of breath knocked at the half-opened door.

A faint voice bade her come in.

She entered and looked around the room.

It was a small, low room, but clean and neat as weak
hands could keep it. It was a little untidy now, for the
weak hands could do no work. Madame Obert lay on the
little bed, her poor face white as the pillow beneath her
head.

The lady went across the room with a soft step, and sal
down by the sufferer's side.

" Have you been ill long, my poor child ?" she asked.

The dull eyes looked eagerly in the face of the questioner.
The voice was so kind and gentle it sent a thrill of pleasure
to the listener's heart at once.

" Oh yes, madam, I have been ill for many months, and
now I am so weak I can no longer move."

" You must not call me madam, my poor child. I am

A COLD LOCKET Ci

Sister Eleanor. I am come to be with you, and nurse you
till you are strong again."

" Oh, how good. How did you know I was ill? Who
sent you to me?"

" The people in this house know of our society. They
came to us and told us that you were poor and friendless
and sick. The poor and friendless and sick are our patients."

"And you will stay with me and talk to me? Oh, how
shall I thank you ? "

" By lying still, talking little, and getting well. That is
our reward : to see our patients well again."

"Ah, madam — pardon me. Ah, Sister, God is very good
to put it into the hearts of ladies like you to devote yourselves
to poor creatures like us."

Sister Eleanor hushed her patient and then tidied up the
little room. With quick, skilful hands she rapidly reduced
everything to order, and then she came again and sat by the
patient's bedside. Presently the doctor came, the doctor of
the society; he examined the patient, wrote a prescription,
and gave the Sister her instructions.

" Take care of her," he said ; " keep her quiet, and we'll
have her well in a month. She's been fretting about
something."

In the evening a porter brought the Sister a camp
bedstead and all her things, and there she was installed as
nurse to Madame Obert, who had nothing to do but be still
and get well.

About seven came a knock at the door. It was Signora
Manzoni with Claud. He had come to say good night to his
mamma. The child came in on tiptoe, led by the good
Italian dame, then he ran softly to his mamma and she put
her weak arms round him and kissed him passionately,

62 THREE BRASS BALLS.

Then Sister Eleanor held out her arms to him.

" Will you not kiss poor mamma's nurse?" she said.

The boy turned his handsome face and toddled towards
her.

She lifted him on her knee.

" And what's your name, darling?" she said, stroking his
flaxen ringlets.

" Peese my name 's Tlaud Obert."

Claud ! For a moment Sister Eleanor forgot herself. A
spasm of pain passed across her face, and she put her hand
to her heart. Then with a sudden movement she clasped
the child to her breast, and her tears trickled down upon
his little face, upturned in astonishment.

The emotion was over in a minute. She put the child
gently down, and motioned the signora to take him from
the room.

She explained to the wondering patient, who had been a
silent spectator of the scene, that someone who had been
very dear to her had been named Claud, and it had revived
old memories.

The days passed on, and under Sister Eleanor's careful
nursing Madame Obert grew rapidly better.

The two women were great friends from the first. The
Sister took great interest in her delicate, refined patient,
and little by little she learned her story. She confided one
night to her that the name she bore was false ; that there
was a mystery about her life. She told her sympathising
listener how she had loved not wisely but too well • how
the man she adored had promised to marry her when
certain family scruples had been overcome; and how, trusting
him blindly, looking upon him as one who could not lie she
had lived with him as his wife. And then one cruel day

A GOLD LOCKET 63

some months before his child was born, she had seen in the
papers that he was engaged to marry a rich and beautiful
lady, and then she had taken her things and gone away
without a word, vowing he should never see her nor hear
of her again. Since then she had earned her living by
giving cheap \essons in music, and teaching English to the
foreigners in Soho who could afford sixpence for a lesson
now and then. That is how she came to be living in the
quarter.

Eleanor heard her story, but it was told a little at a time
and with many interruptions, and she was not quite sure
what all of it was about, for when Madame Obert was talk-
ing her thoughts were often far away.

One day when the patient could sit up she asked for a
little box to be given her from the drawers. She opened
it and drew out the little odds and ends. Sister Eleanor
noticed among them a pawn-ticket. She was too familiar
with the homes of the poor and needy not to know one by
sight in a minute.

Madame Obert noticed the look of her nurse.

" Ah," she said with a sigh ; " it was a bitter day when I
had to part with this." She held the ticket up, and Sister
Eleanor saw that it was for a gold locket, and that it had
been pawned for two pounds.

" It was last winter it went, when I was very poor and
there was no money here at all, and no one to take lessons.
I was ill, too, and couldn't go out. The signora down
stairs took it for me and got the money, for I sorely needed
it. But it was his last present, and I was weak and worried
at the time, and confused, and in my confusion I forgot,
when it was too late, that his portrait was in it. And
now," she added with a sigh, " I fear I shall never see it

64 THREE BRASS BALLS.

again. I am so poor, and now that I cannot work I shall
have all the back rent to make up. O my poor lost love!"

The weakness of her long illness was still upon her, and
she broke down and sobbed.

Sister Eleanor bent down and soothed her. " Come,
come," she said, " don't cry like that. You are not poor,
and you won't have any rent to pay yet. Come, cheer up.
You are on the books of our society, you know, and we
shall see you through."

The poor creature looked up and smiled through her
tears.

"And more than that, if you give me the ticket I'll send
and take the locket out for you now — there ! "

Madame Obert could hardly believe her ears.

" O, Sister ! " she cried — " No, no ! it would be imposing
on your goodness."

" Nonsense, child ! Some day I will tell you my story
J am rich, and have nothing to do with my money, only to
benefit my fellow-creatures."

The Sister took the ticket from the yielding fingers of
its owner, then went down stairs and gave three sove-
reigns to the young Giuseppe Manzoni, promising him a
shilling for himself if he brought the locket and the ri<dit
change.

Giuseppe rushed off without waiting to put on his hat
and presently came up to the room where the Sister sat
with her patient.

Sister Eleanor took the locket and handed it to Madame
Obert. Little Claud was seated on the foot of his mother's
bed nursing the signora's kitten.

Madame Obert took the locket with tender reverence and
kissed it.

A GOLD LOCKET 65

" O, Sister," she said, " you do not know how glad you
have made me."

She held the locket up with her thumb upon the spring.

" Now you shall see the man I loved — the man who
deceived me and married a rich lady — the father of my little
Claud."

She pressed the spring and the locket flew open, and
Sister Eleanor saw the handsome face of her dead husband,
Claud Brettingham.

*****

There is a charming little cottage at Richmond, near the
river, where the passers-by often stop in the summer weather
to admire the climbing roses and the sweet honeysuckle, the
old-fashioned marigolds, and all the flowery wealth of an
English garden glowing in the sun. And sometimes they see
a little lad with flaxen hair and blue eyes trip down the path
with merry shouts, chasing a butterfly from bloom to bloom.
Then a delicate-looking lady with a sweet face — a face all
the sweeter for the tinge of sadness that o'ershadows it —
will look lovingly from the window and call anxiously to him
not to run and get hot in the sun ; and sometimes the little
lad waits at the open gate, and, shading his eyes with his
hands, looks eagerly up the road.

Presently he espies a tall, handsome lady in deep black.
Then he claps his little hands, and crying, " Aunt Eleanor
— Aunt Eleanor!" runs towards her and leaps into her arms
to be smothered with kisses.

Sister Eleanor she is still to all but Claud. He is specially
privileged to call her aunt. She has taken a strange fancy
to her late patient. She has bought this little cottage as an
investment for her money, she says. Madame Obert must
oblige her by living in it to take care of it, as she cannot

66 THREE BRASS BALLS.

leave London and her nursing. Madame Obert must also
be handsomely paid for her custodianship, and must keep a
servant, and so Madame Obert finds life very different from
what it was in the old days at the grimy Soho lodging-house.

Claud Obert will be rich some day, though he does not
know it, for Sister Eleanor has left all her money between
him and the society of which she is a Sister.

She knows now the story of her husband's lost love, and
her woman's heart has room still to pity the faithful girl
whose pride waited for no explanation, but bade her leave
his side at once.

Knowing all now, and looking back upon the past with
feelings chastened by time and sorrow, she can find no
nobler way of honouring the dear memory of her lost lord
than by saving the woman he deserted and cherishing the
child he never knew.

She is a constant visitor to the villa at Richmond, and
there is one thing she never fails to do — that is, to open the
gold locket that hangs from Madame Obert's neck and gaze
at the portrait within.

She says she does it to see if Claud is growing like his
father.

Pledge VI.
A DRESS SUIT.

" SIMPLE SIMON'S at it agin," growled Mrs. Bulgruddery;
" he's a-stompin' up and down and a-howlin' and a-roarin'
like mad. Pat, go up and tell him to howd his row."

Pat, like a dutiful husband, did as he was bidden. He
went up the crazy stairs of the house in Leather-lane where
he lodged, and yelled out, " Be quiet, will ye ? We can't
get a wink o' sleep."

It was just ten in the morning, and although Leather-
lane houses are not expected to be particularly quiet at any
time, yet this one was an exception. It was rather a
superior house. There were in it a working man and his
wife, and a family of french polishers, the proprietor of a
happy family and a gentleman in the bill-sticking line, three
or four young men who went to " business " on the average
quite twice a week, and Mr. and Mrs. Pat Bulgruddery, a
highly-respectable Irish couple, who were the proprietors of
a very flourishing early coffee-stall.

At ten nearly everyone was out except Mr. and Mrs.
Bulgruddery, who came home about eight from their nightly
labours and retired to rest to recruit.

But of late Simple Simon, the gentleman who occupied
a little room just above their heads, had also taken to
remain indoors in the daytime — not, alas ! to sleep, but to
be very wide awake.

On this especial morning he was so dreadfully noisy,

E 2

68 THREE BRASS BALLS.

pacing up and down, shrieking and shouting, that Mrs. B :
could stand it no longer, but dispatched her better half with
the polite message which Pat duly delivered.

" Howd yer row, will yer? How's onyboddy to sleep
wid yer blessed Saturdaynailer a-goin' on like this ? "

Pat was fond of long words. He picked them up from
his customers. Old University men with no boots to
mention, ripe scholars with a penny to last them four-and-
twenty hours, starving and blighted geniuses, broken-down
spendthrifts, victims of misfortune and merciless disaster —
all the flotsam and jetsam of the mighty city — these were
among the customers who sought the warmth of the little
fire and a cup of the scalding hot liquor in the long and
lonely watches of the night at Pat Bulgruddery's coffee-
stall.

Pat's classical expression had no effect on the person it
was hurled at.

"What, yer won't — won't yer? Now, I say, Simon,
look here, ye know ; my old 'oman's dead beat, and she
ain't had a wink. I appeals to you as one gent to another
—stow it ! "

As he finished this appeal Pat Bulgruddery stepped into
the apartment of his fellow-lodger, and then started back
in astonishment.

The room was bare of furniture, save a straw pallet, a
broken chair, and an old deal box, which served as a table.
In the centre stood the long cadaverous figure of Simple
Simon, the jest and butt of half the street boys of London.
He was about fifty-five years of age, six feet high, and
piteously thin. He had won the sobriquet of Simple Simon
from his habit of talking to himself and suddenly bursting
out with addresses to imaginary people. He had also

A DRESS SUIT 69

certain other eccentricities of demeanour which were con-
sidered to justify the title.

His calling was peculiar and objectionable. He dressed
rabbit-skins for the furriers, and slander whispered that
some of his rabbits were cats. But on this occasion he
had not been dressing either rabbits or cats, but him-
self, and that was the reason of Mr. Bulgruddery's
astonishment.

There in the centre of the room stood Simple Simon, not
in the old filthy garb that he ordinarily wore, but washed
and clean, and in full evening dress. Mr. Bulgruddery was
not in the habit of taking in the Gazette of Fashion, nor
was he so well versed in the varying cuts of a dress coat as
Messrs. Poole or Cutler, but he knew quite enough to see
that the dress suit of Simple Simon was twenty years old if
it was a day. The shirt, too, with its elegant ruffles, was
yellow with age.

The transformation was so complete that for a moment
Pat thought he must be mistaken in the man. He gave a
peculiar whistle, and remained transfixed to the spot.

Simple Simon, taking no notice of the intruder, con-
tinued his performance.

" Ladies and gentlemen," he said, holding a broken
teacup in his hand, " this is the twentieth anniversary of my
wedding day. For the cordial manner in which you have
proposed the health of myself and my dear wife, I thank you ;
our children thank you. You behold our happy home.
Ha, ha ! Our happy home. She is a noble woman, ladies
and gentlemen, is my dear wife, and I am proud of her.
God bless you all ! "

The imaginary guests addressed evidently here stood up
and waved their pocket-handkerchiefs, for Simon leapt on

7Q THREE BRASS BALLS.

the top of the box and hoorayed lustily, as though he were
leading the party.

He thrust his hand into the pocket of his coat and drew
out a handkerchief.

It was a woman's handkerchief, a delicate little toy, edged
with the finest lace, and marked in raised silk letters in the
corner, " Marian."

Simon pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and was
about to wave it, when his eyes fell upon it, and he saw
what it was.

He looked at it for a moment silently, then pressed it
passionately to his lips and burst into tears.

Mr. Pat Bulgruddery, astonished at the whole scene, and
quite at a loss to know what to make of it, beat a rapid
retreat, and informed the partner of his joys that that there
Simple Simon was gone stark staring mad in a suit of swell
togs.

*****

Simple Simon made no further noise.

Since he found the handkerchief he had not paced the room
or made any more speeches.

Presently he roused himself from his reverie.

" It is time," he muttered ; " it is time for me to be going."

Simon took up his poor old hat, brushed it round, and
made it look as respectable as he could, and then sallied
forth into the street.

The appearance of Simple Sin ,n in evening dress in the
street was the signal for the mos.. intense excitement in the
colony

At first the people hardly knew him, but gradually the
eccentric dresser of rabbit-skins betrayed himself to the
puzzled on-lookers.

A DRESS SUIT 71

The men and women shrieked with laughter, and the boys
pelted him.

" Hullo, Simple Simon ! goin' to have yer fortergraff
took?" " Goin' to see your gal, Simon?" " Has the Queen
arksed yer to go to Buckinem Pallis to brekfus ?"

Simon took no notice of the local wits, but hurried along,
his strange costume everywhere attracting attention. Now
and then a stone narrowly missed his hat, and an occasional
handful of mud hardly improved the appearance of his
coat.

But all things have an end, and so had Simon's persecu-
tion. After he had cleared the locality in which he was
known he was allowed to go unmolested.

It struck eleven as he made his way across Oxford-street,
and in a few minutes he was standing with a crowd outside
St. George's, Hanover-square.

There was a wedding party expected shortly, and the
British sightseer had assembled in force.

Simon edged his way as near to the red baize pathway as
he could, and waited with the rest.

The people noticed him and chaffed him. It was
suggested that he was the bridegroom trying to hide, or that
he was one of the guests, who'd hired his clothes at the old
curiosity shop.

But presently the bridal party arrived, and then Simon
was forgotten. The guests drove up and passed into the
church. The bride's mother was a beautiful lady, everybody
said. Everybody knew she was the bride's mother from the
family laundress, Mrs. Jones, who stood among the crowd
and explained everything aloud to the female friend who
accompanied her.

" Ah, poor thing ! she's had a lot o' trouble, she has,"

72 THREE BRASS BALLS.

said the laundress, as the stately lady passed up the steps.
" Had a bad husband."

" Is he here? " said the friend.

" Here ! Lor' bless you, no ; he ain't been heard of for
nearly twenty years. Drunk hisself to death, they suppose,
years ago."

" Lor' ! And is that his daughter that's being married?"

" Yes. She was a baby when he went away. He used to
get mad drunk, and the poor lady went in terror of her life.
She was a baronet's daughter, and her friends were very
rich, and they were always opposed to the marriage, for he
was only a poor gentleman when she took up with him, and
her friends made her get a separation — leastways so the
story goes."

" And quite right too," said Mrs. Jones's friend.

"Yes ; only she fretted after him when it was all done,
for when he wasn't on one of his mad drinkin' bouts he was
very kind to her, and she was fond of him, there's no doubt ;
but after the separation she never heard nothing of him, and
it's supposed he went abroad and drunk hisself to death."

Simple Simon stood quite close to the laundress, and
heard her story, which was only interrupted by the arrival
of the bride and the bridesmaids.

She was a beautiful creature, the bride, and she won the
admiration of the crowd at once.

Simple Simon looked after her eagerly as she entered the
church from which she was presently to emerge a wife.
Then he waited patiently with the crowd till the bridal party
should return.

*t* y y ?ic «a»

The service was over and the doors were fluno- wide open.
The bride and bridegroom entered their carriage and were

A DRESS SUIT 73

driven off; then the relations and friends poured out, and
there was quite a large crowd on the pavement, and much
shouting for carriages and general confusion.

As the bride's mother was about to enter her brougham
the horse began to rear. The lady had one foot on the
step, when the beast gave an angry plunge, and was about
to dart forward.

" Take care, ma'am," cried the footman, and at that
moment a strange figure sprang to the horse's head and
seized it.

The terrified animal, alarmed at the apparition, plunged
fearfully, and, dashing forward, struck the man down, and
amid the cries of the bystanders the wheels went over him.

The bride's mother, who had taken her seat, gave a cry
of horror. The horse had been stopped, and was still
enough now, but there in the roadway lay the poor fellow
who had thought to do her a service. He was covered with
mud, and bleeding.

Recovering herself a little, the lady bade her footman
remain behind and see how the poor fellow was, and then
ordered the coachman to drive on, for the wedding party
would be waiting the hostess.

The policeman picked up the fallen man.

" Does anyone know who he is?" asked the footman.

At that moment Pat Bulgruddery pushed his way through
the crowd.

" Yes, I do," he said ; " he's Simple Simon, and he lives
in Leather-lane."

The footman obtained all he wanted of Pat, who had
followed his strange fellow-lodger that morning out of
curiosity, and then returned to his mistress with the in-
formation that the man she had run over was an eccentric

74 THREE BRASS BALLS.

dresser of rabbit-skins who lived in Leather-lane, and was
called Simple Simon.

Simple Simon, who had never opened his eyes or spoken
a word, was put into a cab and taken to the hospital.
*****

A week later a lady called at the hospital to inquire for
the man who had been run over outside St. George's,
Hanover-square.

They told her that his ribs had been fractured, but that he
was going on as well as could be expected.

She would like so much to see him, to tell him how sorry
she was. He was trying to do her a service when it
happened. " Might she see him ? "

Simple Simon's face was turned away as the lady entered
the room. The nurse came up to his bedside and told him
that a lady had come to see him.

The man knew who it was, and still kept his face turned
away. The lady sat down in a chair by the bedside.

" My poor fellow," she said, in a soft, gentle voice that
thrilled through him like music, " I am so very sorry for this
accident. Is there anything I can do for you ?"

Still with his face obstinately turned away, the patient
answered her in a whisper.

" There are other patients in the ward," he said. " Don't
cry out if I tell you a secret."

A secret ! What did the man mean ? Ah, of course, the
poor fellow was not right in his head.

" Tell me your secret, my good man."

She expected to hear that he was the rightful King of
England, or something of the sort.

Simple Simon slowly turned his head on the pillow till the
light fell full upon his upturned face.

A DRESS SUIT 75

Then with trembling lips he uttered the one word,
" Marian."

In spite of a supreme effort, a little cry burst from the
woman's lips. Her face went ashen white, and she gasped
for breath.

Husband and wife had met at last. It was the bride's
father who had been crushed under the carriage- wheels of
his wife on his daughter's wedding day.

*****
On every visiting day the grand lady came to the hospital
and sat for a certain time by Simple Simon's bed. Little by
little his story came out. When her friends had forced the
separation on, and offered him an allowance, his pride had
rebelled, and he had determined they should never hear of
him again.

He confessed his faults ; he knew that when the terrible
drinking fits were on him he was a maniac, but none the less
her quiet acquiescence in his sentence had cut him to the
quick.

" Richard, what could I do ? It was best for both our
sakes — best for the child's sake."

" Aye, it was best for you and her, but not for me. You
severed the last tie that bound me to respectability. After
the separation deeds were signed I plunged into the wildest
dissipation. I brought myself to the brink of the grave, but
I determined you should never again be disgraced by any act
of mine. I changed my name. When all my money was
gone, I herded with the poor and wretched, and toiled for
my daily bread and drink at a filthy trade."
" Poor Richard ! I thought you were dead."
" Yes, poor Richard indeed. I sank to the very lowest
depths of poverty and despair. I had little food ; all I

76 THREE BRASS BALLS.

earned I spent in drink — drink seemed to drown the sense
of shame and degradation. Drunk, I made an idiot oi
myself, and became a byword in the neighbourhood, a
wretched drivelling fool for women to mock and boys to pelt
and stone."

The woman buried her face in her hands as though to
shut out the sight.

" Down in the den where I live they call me Simple
Simon. When I am sober I work at my trade — I dress
rabbit-skins for the furriers ; when I am drunk I roll about
the streets in tatters, smothered with the filth that the boys
hurl at me. I'm Simple Simon of Leather-lane ! "

" O, Richard, this must never be again," wailed the
agonised woman. " I am rich ; you have a right to the
money, though you have never claimed it."

" Money, Marian ! Do you think I would touch your
money? Not I. Your grand people flung it in my face once
that I married you for your gold. I think I've lived that lie
down."

" But, Richard, when you are well and can leave this
place you will never go back to that — that horrible life ? "

" God knows. I have fallen too low ever to rise again."

Suddenly the lady appeared to remember something.

" Tell me," she said ; "you weren't dressed in rags such
as you describe on the day of my — of our daughter's
wedding ? "

" No. You didn't see how I was dressed then. You only
saw something in the road covered with mud. Marian, I
was dressed then exactly as I was dressed on the first
anniversary of our wedding day — the night that I o- G t mad
drunk and frightened you — the last night we were ever
husband and wife."

A DRESS SUIT 77

" Richard ! "

"That's been one of my crazes. I pawned that suit with
everything else after the blow came. I pawned everything
for drink. I let everything go but this, and this I have
taken out every year and worn on the anniversary of
our wedding day. That's one of my mad notions, you know.
Our daughter was married on the anniversary of our wedding
day — that's how I came to wear it then."

"And if you are so poor, how do you get the money to
redeem it, Richard ? "

A smile passed over the man's face.

" I starve for it for weeks, Marian. I pawn everything
else I have in the world to get it out. I wouldn't let the
anniversary of our wedding day pass without wearing it if I
had to steal the money. I put it back the next day, and
take my other things out. It's a rum notion, isn't it? I
think I should like to be buried in that suit, Marian. Ha,
ha ! "

" Richard, this terrible comedy shall be played no longer.
I will rescue you in spite of yourself. Things might be so
different if you would only make the effort ! "
She rose to go. He took her hand.

" Marian, one word. I have told you the history of my
life since our separation, but to all the world beside it is a
secret. Remember that! To you I am alive; to our
daughter I am dead. Promise ! "

"Yes, for the present I promise, Richard. But there are
brighter days in store, I hope, when no one need blush tc
own kinship with you."
The man shook his head.
"Never."

*****

78 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The weeks went by, and Simple Simon got better, and
able to move about the hospital grounds. One day the lady
called as usual and was informed that he had gone away of
his own accord, saying he was quite well and didn't want to
stay any longer.

He had left no message, no trace of his whereabouts. His
wife made every effort to find him, but all was in vain. He
had been back to Leather-lane for his few belongings, and
disappeared.

One night in the winter, after the public-houses were
closed and most of the revellers had passed away, Mr. and
Mrs. Bulgruddery sat at their stall. The wind whistled
round the corner, and the snow blew in the faces of the few
benighted wayfarers with blinding force. The hot coffee
steamed temptingly, but trade was slack. No one who
could help it would stay in the streets such a night as this.

Pat had snugged down in a corner of the stall out of the
wind, and Mrs. B., pulling her shawl tightly round her, had
shut her eyes for forty winks, when they were aroused by
the banging of a cup in the saucer.

" Hullo ! " said Pat. " Cup o' corfee, sir ? "

Then he started back. There in front of him, in rags
and tatters, the snow thick on his unkempt beard, and his
face blue with the cold, stood Simon.

" Why, blest if it ain't Simple Simon ! " said Pat.

" Dear heart alive ! " exclaimed Mrs. B. ; " give him a
cup o' corfee, Pat."

" I didn't come for that," said Simple Simon, "but I did
want you to do me a favour." He fumbled with his numbed
fingers and drew a letter from his breast.

" I want you to take this to-morrow to the address on
it — it's the address of the lady that ran over me."

A DRESS SUIT

79

" All right," said Pat. " I'll take it, mate, never fear."
" Thank you. Good night — I'm going home."
Pat looked after him. "Poor Simon," he said; "ain't
he a wreck ! Wonder where his home is now ! "

3J5 ?J* Jfm 2j£ 3(«

" Marian, the time has come when I can ask you to do
me a favour, because it will be the last. I've drunk away
every farthing I have in the world. I'm homeless and
penniless ; I shall die to-night. You will hear of me at the

mortuary of parish. Enclosed is the ticket of my

favourite suit. I want to be buried in it. Good-bye ; God
bless you ! Richard."

So ran the letter Pat Bulgruddery delivered to the rich
lady.

Simple Simon's last wish was obeyed, and he sleeps the
last sleep in the suit that he prized for auld lang syne. He
had no pauper's funeral, for in Nunhead Cemetery a marble
stone records his name and the date of his death.

Marian kept her unhappy husband's secret faithfully, and
to this day his daughter never knew that the pauper who
committed suicide one winter's night, and was found dead
in his rags and tatters, was her father, Simple Simon, the
rabbit-skin dresser.

Pledge VII.
A WEDDING RING.

" No luck again to-day, Polly"

Dave Heathcote took off his coat, and flung it on th^
dilapidated sofa of a shabby little front parlour in Lambeth,
and then dropped into a rickety armchair with a deep sigh.

Polly, like a dutiful little wife, came to comfort him.

" Don't be downhearted, Dave, dear ; remember when
things are at the worst they will mend."

" Mend be "

Polly put up her little hand, and clapped it on Dave's
mouth just in time.

" Now, don't be a cross old dear ; bear up and be a man.
Look at me."

Dave did look at her with his eyes very wide open, for
Polly had darted to the middle of the room, and was dancing
a breakdown which would have sent a sixpenny gallery
wild with delight.

" Very nice, my dear," said Dave with a sarcastic in-
flection turned on full, "but you're performing to a bad
house ; there's no money in it."

Polly, out of breath, with a merry twinkle in her eyes,
gasped out, " Oh, indeed, isn't there? "

" Well, all I know." said her husband, "there wasn't any
when I went out."

" Ah, but I've been out too."

Dave jumped up and caught his wife's arm : —

A WEDDING RING. 81

" By Jove, Polly, you don't mean to say you've got an
engagement ? "

" Yes, I do," answered Polly triumphantly.

•' For both of us ? "

" Yes, for both of us."

Two minutes afterwards Mrs. Turvey, the landlady,
opened the door and delivered a short speech. Was it
decent for the parlours to be dancing Irish jigs and yelling
like mad, disturbing the other lodgers ?

Mrs. Turvey wasn't a bad sort, and Polly soon pacified
her when she told her that the Irish jig was entirely due
to the joy which she and her husband felt at having ob-
tained an engagement at last, and the knowledge that they
would soon be in a position to pay Mrs. Turvey all arrears.

When the landlady had descended to her kitchen, Polly
told Dave all about it ; how she had seen an advertisement
in the Era in which a whole company was required, how
she had gone to the address given and seen a nice gentle-
man, who had told her how he was going to make a grand
provincial tour, to commence at once, and he had further
told her that she and her husband were just the people he
wanted.

" And the terms, Polly ? " asked Dave, anxiously.

" First class ! We're to have five pounds a week each,
and all our travelling expenses."

No wonder Polly was overjoyed and danced break-
downs. Why this was wonderful luck. She and Dave had
been out of an engagement for months, and things had
begun to look very desperate.

They had a short London engagement at a theatre which
opened gloriously. Such decorations, such luxuries — it was
to be the talk of London. Unfortunately, all the specula-

82 THREE BRASS BALLS.

tor's capital had been spent in these luxuries, and after the
first week, business being bad, only half salaries were forth-
coming ; the second week the house was in Chancery, and
the third it was shut.

Dave and his wife had given up a safe provincial engage-
ment to get a show in London, and it was a great dis-
appointment to them. They couldn't go back to their old
company, for their places were filled up. Dave had tried
all the agencies, little and big, and paid as many fees as he
could afford, but without success.

They had no capital, and after the first month the shoe
began to pinch. There was the rent to pay, and they had
to live, and there was no money coming in. With terror
Dave found that their wardrobe would have to go, and fare-
well to provincial engagements if you haven't got a decent
wardrobe.

It was just when the clouds were blackest, and absolute
misery was staring them in the face, that Polly — God bless
her heart ! — went out and did in one morning what Dave
had been trying to do for three months.

Dave and Polly were " useful " folks. They could play
Hamlet and Ophelia, and Romeo and Juliet, if Shakespeare
was wanted, or they could make themselves generally useful
in burlesque and opera bouffe. They had been members
of provincial travelling and stock companies all their lives,
and the members of such companies have to do a little of
everything, and do it decently.

Dave was about thirty-five, and Polly was two years
younger. They were both born and bred to the stage, they
fell in love on the stage, and it seemed quite unnatural to
both of them that they could not be married on the stage as
a sort of benefit performance.

A WEDDING RING. 83

Polly confessed to Dave that when he put the ring on
and said, " I take thee," &c, she quite expected the pit and
gallery to applaud, and he confessed to her that he'd studied
the service just like he would a part.

But there was nothing theatrical about their affection ; it
was honest and tender and true, and Polly, with the war-
paint off, was a sweet, loving little woman that would have
been a blessing to any man's home.

She was a blessing to Dave, and they sailed along life's
river merrily enough till this London engagement upset
everything, and for the first time since their marriage they
were face to face with trouble.

But this was all over now, for the morning after Polly's
visit to the manager Dave went and saw him and signed
the engagement, and in a week they were to open at the
Theatre Royal, Swamperton.

Now that they had got an engagement, Dave summoned
up the courage to do what he had not dared to do before.
He parted with such portion of their wardrobe as was not
likely to be wanted until he had money to redeem it, and
this, with a little pinching, got them free of Mrs. Turvey
and left them their railway fare to Swamperton and a little
over. Salaries and expenses only commenced from the
first performance.

It was all outlay at first, but what did that matter ? Fancy
when the ten golden sovereigns came in weekly, how nice
and comfortable they would be !

*****

The first night at Swamperton was a great success. The
house was crammed ; the company in high spirits. The
manager was such a gentleman ; he had a big diamond
ring on his finger, and he seemed so careless in the matter

F 2

84 THREE BRASS BALLS

of expense that it was quite evident money was no object
to him.

He went to the best hotel in the town and lived like a
prince. After the first performance he invited the gentle-
men of the company to supper, and gave them champagne.
Dave came home to the lodgings he had taken for the
month they were to play in Swamperton and told Polly that
he was a real swell, the manager was, and no humbug.
He was going to make his company the talk of the pro-
vinces.

Polly clapped her hands, and whispered to Dave that now
they would have a real chance of showing the big towns
what they could do. " And the next time we go to
London, Dave," she added, " we shall go with a big reputa-
tion, and anybody will be glad to have us."

Dave thought so too, but he didn't say much on the
subject, for the champagne had been very plentiful and he
was beginning to feel sleepy.

*****

The succeeding nights at Swamperton were not so good
as the first. The house was only half full, and there were
whispers that a good deal of paper was about. The manager,
however, laughed when any of the company spoke of the
bad business. He expected it ; he was prepared for it. He
had taken a fair amount of hard cash, and if the first week
or two was a loss it didn't matter. He had plenty of capital
behind him.

He spoke so cheerily that the company were quite
cheerful too, and when Saturday morning came round
and it was treasury, they all appeared at the theatre
jubilant.

Many of them were like Dave and Polly, they had been

A WEDDING RING. 85

out of engagements for some time, and treasury was a
delightful novelty to them.

The manager met them all bows and smiles. He was
really very sorry he had forgotten to inform them before
but treasury would be on Monday this time. It would be
much more convenient to him, as he intended to have a
gentleman specially to attend to the finances. He was
coming on Monday, and if they did not mind he would
prefer to leave it till he came.

There was a little grumbling. It was rather inconvenient
to some of the company, but the manager spoke so nicely,
and explained to them his reasons so lucidly, that they
gradually dispersed, not quite so happy, perhaps, as when
they came, but still consoled with the idea that Monday was
close at hand.

Saturday was always the best night of the week at
Swamperton, and this Saturday was no exception. The
cheap parts of the house were crammed, and the audience
was enthusiastic. Polly got a big call, and Dave was
delighted. The manager shook hands with her that
night, and congratulated her, and Dave declared he
could hear her heart bumping with pride all the way
home.

Sunday was a quiet, happy day. Secure in the know-
ledge that they were to have plenty of money on the
morrow, Dave and Polly strolled into the country and had
a little dinner at an inn. Then they strolled back, and
found beauty in everything. The sky seemed bluer than
they had ever known it before, and the birds sang just as if
they knew to-morrow was treasury, and they were going to
have ten golden pounds too. They sang so loudly and
joyously that Polly thought it couldn't be wicked, or they

86 THREE BRASS BALLS

wouldn't do it, and so she sang too, as they strolled along
the green lanes.

O, that happy Sunday afternoon ! Dave Heathcote will
never forget it — never, as long as he lives.

They got home to their lodgings and had a nice quiet
little tea, and Polly cooked two mushrooms she had picked
by the way, and ate them all herself ; and Dave was an old
goose and got sentimental in the twilight, and then he and
Pollywentand stood at the windowandwatchedthesunfading
from the sky and the darkness coming slowly over all.

" How like some people's lives the twilight is, Polly,"
said Dave, thoughtfully. "The sun goes out, the darkness
comes on, and "

" And you're a dear old silly, and please don't give me
the horrors. O, Dave, it's treasury to-morrow — let's have
the candles."

Polly pulled her husband's face aown and gave him two
big kisses, and then the candles were lit.

In the middle of the night Dave woke suddenly. Was it
fancy, or did he hear someone calling him ?

" Dave ! "

He started up. It was the voice of his wife that lay by
his side, but oh, so faint and low.

" Dave, I feel so ill."

Dave was frightened. His wife lay and moaned with
pain, and he wondered what he had better do.

" Dave, dear, I think you'd better go for a doctor, I'm in
such dreadful pain."

" My poor darling, whatever can it be ? "

Dave was up quickly enough when he knew what to do,
and he had his clothes on in no time. He had lit the

A WEDDING RING. 87

candle, and was alarmed at the expression of his wife's face.
The illness was so sudden and mysterious he could not
account for it. Bidding her be of good heart and he would
be back with the doctor directly, he ran down the stairs
and out into the street.

It was three in the morning. Dave's road to the doctor's
lay past the railway-station. There is a train from the
North which reaches Swamperton soon after three, and the
Swampertonians who have marketing business in London
travel by it. As Dave passed the station the train was just
due. There was a handful of people about, and Dave was
surprised to see among them his manager, with a port-
manteau in his hand.

Where could he be going? He went close up to him
and said, " Good morning."

The manager started as if he had been shot, but he re-
covered himself in a minute.

" Hullo, Heathcote ! what brings you out this time of
night ? "

Dave told him.

" Sorry for you," said the manager. " I shall be back in
time for treasury. I return by the ten train with the new
secretary."

Dave gave a sigh of relief. He saw it all now. The
manager was coming back with the new secretary.

He bade him good morning, and hurried on to the
doctor's. The doctor returned with him and saw Mrs.
Heathcote. He shook his head, and his face was very grave.
Then he asked her what she had been eating, and Dave told
him about the mushrooms.

" Ah," said the doctor, "that accounts for it." And then
he told poor Dave that the mushroom she had eaten was

88 THREE BRASS BALLS.

probably the deadly Agaricus phalloides, so often mistaken
for it, and that his wife was poisoned, and that her illness
was serious.

*****

Dave went to treasury on Monday alone. He took with
him the doctor's certificate to show the manager. Polly
was weak and ill, and the doctor said it would be weeks
before she would be strong enough to play. Dave was
very down-hearted. It seemed such a pity just as they were
on the hisfh road to fortune.

When he got to the theatre the company had assembled.
It was the first treasury, and they wanted the money badly.
In many cases there were dear ones far away at home
anxiously awaiting the promised remittance. There was a
very pretty girl who played the ingenues, and she was
terribly anxious for her little pittance. She had a poor old
widowed mother in London, whose very daily bread de-
pended on her scant earnings. She knew that unless she
sent money to-day the poor invalid might have to go
dinnerless to-morrow.

As the appointed hour struck, and no manager and no
secretary appeared, the poor players began to look terribly
anxious, and their faces grew longer and longer.

They talked the matter over, and Dave related the in-
cident of the early morning. Then a great fear fell upon
them all. God help them if their suspicions were true, and
they had indeed fallen into the trap of a swindling manager.

Alas ! their fears were realised. Gradually the terrible
truth came out. The man had paid nobody ; not even his
hotel bill had been settled. He had taken the whole of the
receipts for the week and bolted.

He was one of the class who live upon the poor struggling

A WEDDING RING. 89

players, who entice them far from their homes to country
places, and then leave them penniless and wretched in a
strange town to settle their bills and get back again as best
they may.

Dave Heathcote hardly knew how he got back to his
lodgings. What was he to do in a strange place, without
money, and with a sick wife?

When he got home he found Polly worse. The doctor
had been again, and left a message with the landlady. The
patient must have delicacies, and be kept up, as the shock
to the system had been great.

Delicacies ! Where were they to be got ? Dave was
almost beside himself. Why, he hadn't the money to pay
the week's rent that was due. How could he keep the
terrible secret? Polly guessed it in his white face; she
gathered it from the incoherent words which fell from his
lips. Over the heartrending agony of that dark hour I draw
the veil.

*****

The news of the fiasco at the theatre travelled fast. Some
of the poor people were turned out of their lodgings at
once. There was no chance of their paying, and they had
to go, to make room for those who could.

Dave's landlady wanted him to turn out there and then,
but he refused. To take his wife out ill as she was would
kill her. Besides, where were they to go ? To the work-
house ?

That afternoon the local pawnbroker did a roaring trade
with the company. Everything that could be spared went
to pay the rents and enable the poor victims to get back to
their homes.

Dave's scanty wardrobe, and his wife's as well, went at

qo THREE BRASS BALLS.

once, and the landlady, mollified by a small payment, gave
Mrs. Heathcote another week to get well.

But the trouble and the illness together had made
recovery a difficult matter. At the end of the week Polly
was worse, and Dave was in despair.

The doctor came in one afternoon and ordered her brandy
at once — she was sinking. Brandy ! Poor Dave, where
was he to get it ? Brandy might save her life yet, the
doctor told him. " A little and often " — those were bis
words. What could he do ? He hadn't a shilling in the
place. There was nothing to pawn. His wife lay in a fitful
slumber, her white, thin hand outside the coverlet. Her
fingers had grown so thin her wedding ring was loose.

The gleam of the gold caught Dave's eye as he sat by her
bedside, and a sudden thought flashed upon him.

Furtively, as though he had been a thief, he stretched out
his hand and gently drew the golden circlet from her finger.
The perspiration stood on his forehead, and his hands
trembled.

At last he had it off and in his possession, and still she
slept.

He crept softly out of the room and went over the road
to the pawnbroker's. It was a good thick ring — he re-
membered the happy night they had chosen it from the
jeweller's stock — and they lent him seven and sixpence
on it.

Then he bought a bottle of brandy and went back to his
lodgings.

Polly still slept. She was breathing so softly and gently,
and her pale cheeks had a hectic flush on them. The
doctor said sleep would do her good. He would give her
the brandy when she woke.

A WEDDING RING. 91

The landlady came and knocked gently at the door.
There were some gentlemen down stairs who wished to see
Mr. Heathcote. Dave went down stairs.

He had carried the ticket for the ring in his hand with the
brandy. He hardly knew what he was doing, for trouble
and want and long vigils had unnerved him. He left the
brandy and the ticket together on the little table by the
bedside, and went down stairs in a half-dazed condition,
wondering who could want to see him.

They were some gentlemen of the town, who wished to
organise a benefit for the players who still remained in
Swamperton unable to get home.

They wished Dave to put them in possession of all the
facts he knew.

The conversation lasted half an hour in the landlady's
parlour, and the gentlemen left Dave happier than he had
been for some time. Their scheme was good, and they
promised him assistance at once. Dave was very grateful,
and he went up stairs with a swelling heart. Hope was his
at last.

He entered the room with a light step and went to the
patient's side. Something in her look alarmed him. The
eyes were close shut, the hectic flush had gone, and the face
was of a leaden hue.

He ran to the top of the stairs and called for the landlady.

They lifted poor Polly up and put brandy to her lips and
bathed her brow, but she did not open her eyes.
She was in a dead faint.

Dave bade the landlady stay by her, and rushed off
terrified for the doctor.

When they returned Polly lay as still as ever — her
breathing was barely perceptible.

92 THREE BRASS BALLS.

"She's fainted," said the doctor; "she's had a sudden
shock or undergone some extra exertion."

Dave assured the doctor that she had not.

The doctor put his hand on her heart. Then he turned
to Dave and said kindly, " My poor fellow, prepare yourself
for the worst."

Dave knelt by the little bed like a man in a dream, and
prayed to God to spare his darling's life. God in His great
wisdom refused his prayer. In an hour Polly Heathcote
was at rest for ever.

Dave took the dead hand in his agony to press it to
his lips. It was the ringless left. Ashe lifted it reverently,
he noticed that it was clenched, and that the dead fingers
held something in their cold clutch.

Gently he unloosed them, and started back with a cry.

In the poor dead woman's hand lay the pawn-ticket of her
wedding ring.

She had woke during Dave's absence, and found it, and
the sudden revelation of the last sacrifice to which
destitution had reduced them had caused the poor feeble
heart to break.

5JC 3(C 3JJ 5(C JJC

Polly Heathcote lived and died not in story but in fact.
Dave Heathcote, her husband, drags out a weary existence
still, his heart buried in his young wife's grave. He is one
of the stock company of a little theatre in the North,
without hope and without ambition. The swindling manager
is doing well. I sat next him not a week since in the stalls
of a West-end house, and the brilliancy of his diamond ring
dazzled me. I see by the advertisements in a theatrical
newspaper that he is specially organising a first-class
company for a provincial tour. Poor company !

Pledge VIII.
A DIAMOND NECKLACE.

" FATHER'S late," said Mrs. Alabaster, as she glanced
uneasily at the Dutch clock; "father's dreadful late. I
hope nothing ain't happened to him."

" P'r'aps he's gone a-slidin' in the Park," suggested
Master Jemmy Alabaster, aged nine, who was amusing him-
self by picking small pieces out of the muffins that stood,
buttered and ready, in the fender.

"Gone a what?" said Mrs. Alabaster, looking at her son
and suddenly discovering his occupation. "Jem, you
young varmint, leave off picking them muffins, do ! I don't
know where you gets your nasty ways from, I'm sure. Gone
a slidin', indeed! The father of a respectable family, as
have come home to his tea at 6.30 regular from the first day
he vowed to do so at the altar, as is fifteen years ago, gone
slidin' ! Jem Alabaster, you're a fool ! "

Jem Alabaster subsided, but still he felt his supposition
was quite natural. Hadn't it been freezing for a week, and
weren't the parks crowded with skaters and sliders ?
Wouldn't he just go sliding, only his mother wouldn't let
him !

Mrs. Alabaster got up and felt the muffins and turned
them round, then she rearranged the bread-and-butter in
the big dish, then she dropped a lump of sugar into the tea-
cups, just by way of doing something. Mr. Alabaster's un-
punctuality on this occasion was not only singular — it was

94 THREE BRASS BALLS.

annoying. It was the 13th of December, and his birthday,
and on this occasion there were always muffins for tea and
a few other little seasonable delicacies, such as a sixpenny
cake, &c, and all the children waited and had tea with
father.

Jem was the youngest boy, but there were two more
children not yet present — Nelly, a bonny girl of fourteen,
the eldest, and Tom, who went to work with father and
came home with him.

Mr. Alabaster was a working jeweller. He was employed
by a large firm in Hatton-garden, and had been with them
twenty years. He was a great favourite with his employers,
and often sent by them on confidential missions. "James
Alabaster might have been trusted with untold gold," said
the Messrs. Briggs, his employers, and they acted up to their
belief.

It was nearly seven when Nelly, her pretty cheeks scarlet
with the cutting wind, came down from her post of sentry
at the front door to announce that nothing was to be seen
of father.

Nelly always waited at the front door when she could,
and got dad's first kiss, and helped him off with his com-
forter and his overcoat.

" I can't make it out, mother," continued the little girl,
"because if he'd gone anywhere sure-/y he'd have sent Tom
on to say so, and Tom ain't come home."

" O' course he would," groaned Mrs. Alabaster, " Lor', I
shall be quite in a fidget directly. There be such awful
things in the noosepapers nowadays one don't know what
to think. He may be "

The good lady was just going to enumerate some of the
horrible disasters which may befall people in the London

A DIAMOND NECKLACE.

95

streets, when there came a knock at the door, and Nelly
rushed up stairs.

It wasn't father's knock, but it was Tom's. Perhaps
father was with him.

Tom came in as jolly as a sandboy, and smacking his lips
at the smell of the muffins, but his face fell when they asked
him where his father was.

" Why, ain't he come home ? "

" No."

" Well, that's rum. Why, he left half an hour earlier to
take a diamond necklace home that we had to repair, and
he told me he should be home before me. I stopped half
an hour late to let old Briggs out ; he stayed a bit late to-
night."

Mrs. Alabaster gave a little cry of terror. " O my poor
orphans ! " she exclaimed ; " your poor father's been
knocked down and robbed, and perhaps killed, and he'll
never come home no more, and the muffins won't be worth
eating when he does."

" Oh, nonsense, mother," said Tom, cheerily. " Father
will be here all right. He's only been kept waiting at the
house. It's a lady of title as the necklace belongs to, and
he was to give her the necklace himself, and take her re-
ceipt for it."

"Of course, mother," chimed in Nelly ; " why these grand
ladies will keep you waiting hours."

" Ah, well," said Mrs. Alabaster, wiping her eyes with
her apron and fetching Jemmy a box on the ears for play-
ing with the teapot lid; "what I says is, ladies or no
ladies, a man ought to have his tea while it's hot. What's

that?"

That was a knock — father's knock, sure enough.

g6 THREE BRASS BALLS.

Nelly and Tom were at the door in a minute, and there
was father as right as a trivet, and as jolly as ever.

" Sorry I've kept tea waiting, 'Tilda, dear," he said,
cheerily, as he gave his spouse a kiss that might have been
heard next door; "fact is, I had a queer little job on to-
night."

" I know," answered Mrs. Alabaster, "the diamond neck-
lace. There, sit down and have your tea ; the muffins will
be as tough as leather. Just as if you couldn't have told
the lady it was your birthday and you was expected home
to tea."

Mr. Alabaster sat down and had his tea, and his family
gathered round the table and had their tea too.

And in the interval of munching muffins and emptying
his teacup, he related the adventure which had kept him so
late.

The diamond necklace had been sent by Lady D ■, an

old customer of the firm, to have a slight alteration.
Alabaster had instructions to deliver it to the lady in
person, and take her receipt for it. The necklace had
been hurried on, a servant having called from Lady D.'s
a few days since with special instructions for it to be sent

on a certain evening, as Lady D wanted to wear it at

a ball.

When Alabaster arrived at the house and asked for Lady

D , he was told she was not in — would he step in and

wait a minute ?

He went into a room and sat by a fire, and the footman
came in and talked to him. He was a very swell footman
and kept nicking his pocket-handkerchief about in front of
Alabaster's face, and waving it to and fro like the swell
footmen do in the play, and presently the heat of the fire

A DIAMOND NECKLACE. 97

drew Mr. Alabaster off, for he felt quite drowsy, and his
head nodded, and he must have dropped off and had forty
winks.

When he woke up he looked at the clock on the mantel-
piece and saw it was past six, and then the footman came
in and said her ladyship was detained in the country. They
had received a telegram to say she would not be home till
the morning.

" Did you leave the diamonds, father ?" asked Tom.

" Not me, my boy, I brought 'em away with me."

Mrs. Alabaster leapt up in terror. She desired to know
if Mr. Alabaster wanted his wife and children murdered in
the night. How would he like to find them with their
throats cut in the morning? She wouldn't sleep with them
diamonds in the place. It was worse than a barrel of
gunpowder.

" Nonsense, my dear, who's to know I've got them
here ? "

Mr. Alabaster put his hand in his pocket and drew the
case out and opened it. There, in its velvet bed, lay the
beautiful diamond necklace.

"Put it away!" shrieked Mrs. Alabaster; "how do you
know who's a-lookin' through the keyhole? "

Mrs. Alabaster's terror was so genuine that to console
her her husband closed the case and put it in his pocket
again.

Mr. Alabaster had no peace that evening, and he heartily
wished the necklace at the devil. About nine o'clock, when
the street grew quiet, his wife had worked herself up into
such a state that she absolutely refused to pass the night
beneath the same roof as the diamonds.

She was sure the house would be broken into. Thieves

G

gS THREE BRASS BALLS.

could smell diamonds, she said, like postmen could postage-
stamps.

" Well, what the deuce would you have me do ? " growled
Mr. Alabaster, at last fairly out of temper.

" Why, take them back to the shop."

" It's shut long ago, and everything locked up."

" Well, then, take them to the governor's private house,
and let him keep them all night."

Directly he heard his wife's proposition it suddenly
dawned upon Alabaster that this was what he ought to have
done at first.

" By Jove, old woman, you're right. Tom, put on your
hat, and we'll take'em now."

Tom, nothing loth, put on his overcoat, and he and his
father set off for the North of London, where the governor
lived.

Arrived at the house, he sent up his name, and was shown
into the dining-room.

"Well, Alabaster, nothing wrong about the necklace, I
hope," said the master, looking anxiously at his visitor.

" No, sir, only Lady D was not at home, and not likely

to be to-night, and as I had your strict orders to deliver
it personally and take her receipt, I brought it away again."

" Quite right, Alabaster ; we can't be too careful in these
days of jewel robberies."

"Yes, sir; I thought so, sir, and so I took it home, and
somehow I didn't think perhaps my house was quite safe
for such a valuable article, and so I brought it to you, sir."

Alabaster put his hand into his breast pocket and drew
out the jewel-case and presented it to his master.

The jeweller took it, opened the case mechanically, and
looked at the gems within.

A DIAMOND NECKLACE.

99

As he did so a strange expression of horror stole across
his face, and he went deadly white.

" Good God, Alabaster ! "■ he exclaimed, springing to his
feet. " What the devil does this mean ? "

Alabaster stared in amazement, and thought his master
must have gone suddenly mad.

"What does what mean, sir? " he said, nervously.

"Why, hang it, man, this isn't the necklace I sent you
with ! These are paste."

It was Alabaster's turn to be horrified now.

" Paste, sir ! Why, they've never been out of my posses-
sion since you gave them to me."

The jeweller was pacing the room in a state of terrible
excitement. He turned fiercely on to his workman.

" I tell you these are paste! The diamonds I sent you

with were Lady D 's own, that she left with us to be

repaired."

" But they've never " Alabaster stopped short. He

suddenly remembered how he had fallen asleep at Lady
D 's.

He told his master all the circumstances. But that would
hardly account for the robbery.

" There's been a plot here," said his master. " You must
come with me at once to Lady D 's."

Alabaster felt like a man in a dream. The whole thing
was a perfect mystery to him. He could hardly believe it.

Tom was still waiting in the hall. He was sent home
with a message to Mrs. Alabaster that his father had gone
out on business with the master, and would be late home.

" And don't go and frighten her, Tom, or let her know
as I look flurried. I'll tell you all about it to-morrow."

Tom went home with the message, and Alabaster, with

G 2

ioo THREE BRASS BALLS.

a beating heart, got into a cab with his master and drove tc

Lady D 's.

*****

" Is Lady D at home ? "

" Yes."

Alabaster was surprised. It was a different footman
from the one who had let him in and told him her ladyship
was detained in the country.

He and his master were shown into an ante-room, and
after a while Lady D came to them.

She was utterly astonished when the jeweller commenced
by saying that in consequence of her orders he had sent the
necklace home that evening.

" I never sent such an order."

" Your own maid, madam, called with that message."

Lady D — — rang the bell.

"Send Parky ns to me."

u Parkyns is out this evening, ma'am."

Parkyns, the maid, not being there to answer for herself,
Lady D requested the jeweller to continue.

He told his story shortly — how he had sent a trustworthy
messenger with the real diamonds, how the messenger, aftei
waiting half an hour, had been told that her ladyship would
not return to town that night, and how the messenger,
having received instructions to hand them to her ladyship
personally, had thereupon left the house with them.

"And, your ladyship," concluded the jeweller, "between
the time he left my establishment and returned to my
private house the real jewels had been abstracted and these
put in their place."

With these words the jeweller opened the case and showed
her ladyship the paste diamonds.

A DIAMOND NECKLACE. 101

Her ladyship gave a little start, and stammered out :
" Why, those are mine."

" What, your ladyship ! These are not the diamonds you
left to be repaired ? "

" No; but — dear me, it's very singular. To tell you the
truth, some years ago in Paris I had a necklace made in
imitation of my own, and — this is it. It must have been .
abstracted from my jewel-case."

The jeweller opened his eyes with astonishment:
Alabaster sat with his mouth open as well. It was all like
an Arabian night's entertainment to him.

" But where are the real jewels? That is the question,"
said the jeweller, when he had recovered from his sur-
prise. "It is now evident that the change was effected
here, and that one of your people is concerned in the
matter."

" The footman who opened the door to me was a tall,
dark man," Alabaster ventured to observe. "Perhaps he'd
know why he said you weren't coming home, your lady-
ship?"

Lady D rang the bell and requested the footman who-

answered it to send Johnson up.

" Johnson's out this evening, your ladyship."

" That's singular," exclaimed the jeweller. "The maid
who left the false message and the footman who deceived
my messenger are both out."

Her ladyship looked puzzled. It certainly seemed very
strange.

" I think I'd better go to Scotland-yard at once," said
the jeweller, "if you've no objection. This is what they
call a plant, your ladyship, and the sooner the police know
of it the more likely we are to get your necklace back. You

102 THREE BRASS BALLS.

won't see either your maid or your footman again. They're
off with the necklace."

*****

The jeweller's anticipations were realised. Neither of

the suspected servants returned, and when Lady D

went to her jewel-case she found that the necklace was not
the only thing she had lost.

The police took the matter up at once, but before they
had time to make many inquiries a new feature was imparted
to the case.

By the following afternoon's post Alabaster's master
received a letter. On half a sheet of paper was scribbled in
pencil : " This ain't any use to us — you can have it now
we've passed the notes " ; and enclosed was a pawnbroker's
agreement for the advance of £800 on a diamond necklace
the property of Lady D .

The jeweller went off with a detective at once to the
pawnbroker, and interviewed him. The transaction was
perfectly square and straightforward. This was the pawn-
broker's narrative : —

" The other day a footman brought me a note apparently

from Lady D , saying that her ladyship wished for a

temporary advance of £800 on a diamond necklace. Would
I call on such a day at such an hour and see the necklace
and make the advance ?

" Such a request is not at all unusual. Very great people
pledge their valuables at times, and I saw nothing peculiar
in the affair, especially as I was to go or send to her
ladyship's house. No thought of fraud ever entered my
head.

" I went about half-past five in the evening and was
shown into a room. After waiting some time a lady I

A DIAMOND NECKLACE. 103

presumed to be Lady D came in and brought me the

necklace in a case which I noticed was not made for it.

" A footman who took my name when I called informed
me that her ladyship was at home, and he addressed the
lady I saw as 'your ladyship.' I had no reason to suspect
that it was a case of personation.

"The jewels were perfectly right. I gave notes for the
amount, and took them away with me, and here they are."

With these words the pawnbroker opened the case, and
there sure enough was the diamond necklace.

The plot was now perfectly plain. The jeweller had been
ordered by the maid to send the necklace home at an hour
when her ladyship would be out, the pawnbroker had called
about the same time, and been shown into an adjoining
room, and then the change had been effected.

There was no doubt the thieves were well aware that the

jewels would only be given up personally to Lady D ,

and hence the necessity for the complicated arrangements.

The fact of the necklace being sent to repair doubtless
suggested the scheme to obtain possession of it. When it

was at home Lady D ■ always kept it in a place of safety,

to which not even her maid could obtain access.

The police concluded that Alabaster had been stupefied by
a chloroformed handkerchief being waved in front of him,
and that the whole was an artfully-contrived plot of the
footman and maid, who had not been long in her ladyship's
service, and who were doubtless confederates and part of
the gang of professional jewel robbers, who live about in
service until they have an opportunity of effecting a coup.

The necklace was duly redeemed, Lady D and the

jeweller arranging the loss between them; and Mrs.
Alabaster, who heard the whole story, went down on her

104 THREE BRASS BALLS.

bended knees and begged her husband, if he loved her,
never to go a-takin' diming necklaces and things 'ome, not
for nobody, as might ha' chloroformed him to death, and no
knowin' but for that agreement or memyrandum a-turnin'
up as it did might have caused him to be thought to be one
of the gang himself, which a honester man, though that pig-
headed and obstinate at times, didn't exist.

And Mrs. Alabaster is to a certain extent right. But for
the thieves sending the agreement, knowing they could
neither dispose of it nor redeem the necklace, it is quite
possible Alabaster might have gone through the world with
a suspicion of having been something worse than a dupe in
the matter attached to him.

In this, the age of clever jewel robberies, when the thieves
have an organisation which not only includes servants, but
detectives, I need not insist too much on the truth of this
narrative.

There is a well-known jeweller, not a hundred miles from
Hatton-garden, who will be very pleased to endorse every
word of it, and if he is engaged, ask for Mr. Alabaster.

But if he should not happen to be in, pray don't go to
his private residence and mention the object of your visit to
his wife. The mere mention of a diamond necklace sends
that worthy lady into hysterics.

Pledge IX.
A PAIR OF BLANKETS.

The great gas star of the Royal Alcazar Music Hall
flung its radiance half across the muddy roadway outside,
and brought the magnificence of a pair-horse brougham
into full relief. It lit up the silver-plated harness of the
impatient chestnuts, it beamed upon the shiny hat of the
liveried Jehu, and just enabled the passer-by to see that the
interior of the equipage was luxury itself.

It was evident that some person of distinction was the
proprietor, for an eager crowd had gathered about the car-
riage waiting for him to make his appearance.

It isn't always a pleasant crowd to look upon that gathers
in the Haymarket at 1 1 p.m., and to-night the flaring trans-
parency and the milk-white gas globes flung a garish light
upon gaunt figures, sallow, wicked faces, leering eyes, and
cruel lips. There were battered wrecks of humanity there
— tottering old sinners broken down by drink and dissipa-
tion ; and there were youths just entering on manhood, but
with faces that told already a miserable tale of early vice.

And there, too, were women — women out of whom the
world had long since crushed all semblance of womanhood.
There, side by side, stood the stout Belgian outcast in her
hired finery, and the thin English wanton in her tawdry
rag's, and near them the old and shrivelled beldames who
are the spies of West-end hagdom ; and over all there
floated an odour of patchouly and gin.

106 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The rain pours down, but the crowd still waits. Round
it gathers a fringe of respectability — countrymen seeing
life, gentlemen on their way to the club, and decent men
and women passing along to their homes.

" What are they waiting for ? " says a young woman,
with her marketing basket on her arm, to her husband.

Before he can reply, the answer comes from a youth at
her elbow — a youth with his billycock hat on one side, a
cigar in his mouth, and a shilling crutch stick in his hand.

" Why, for O'Howler, o' course. It's 'is Ben ter-nite,
and thet's 'is kerridge."

The youth is right ; the ladies and gentlemen are waiting
to see the great O'Howler, the lion comique, the gentleman
who earns thirty pounds a night by roaring out meaningless
trash spiced with innuendo that means a great deal.

It is his benefit to-night at the Royal Alcazar. The walls
are plastered with his name in letters of red and green.
Inside the place is crammed. He has sung his last song, he
has made his speech, and been presented on the stage with
a diamond ring by the proprietor — the diamond ring being
provided by himself — and now he is drinking champagne at
10s. 6d. a bottle with the "swell" patrons of the establish-
ment. He doesn't drink much, for he has another " turn "
at half-past eleven.

The inside patrons have been duly gratified, and the
patient outsiders' turn is approaching.

The great man comes out jauntily, a huge rose in the
button-hole of his light coat, and his diamond shirt-studs
flashing in the gaslight.

How they envy him, some of these poor wretches in the
street ! how they wonder what he does with his thirty
pounds a night ! One pale-faced lad pushes his way to the

A PAIR OF BLANKETS. 107

front and shouts out, " Brayvo, Bill ! " Bill is the
O'Howler's Christian name.

The O'Howler strides through the crowd to his carriage
with the calm disdain of an emperor accustomed to homage.
He turns the silver handle of the door, and is about to fling
himself gracefully into the gorgeous interior, when a violent
hand is laid upon the tail of his elegant overcoat.

The great O'Howler turns with an oath to see who has
thus dared to assail him, and the crowd gives a shout of
astonishment.

This proud creature of genius, in faultless array, with his
rose and his diamonds and his lavender kids, is held firmly
in the clasp of a wretched, gin-sodden hag, whose rags are
encrusted with mud, and over whose bloated face the
drenched hair escaped from a battered bonnet hangs in a
wet, untidy mass, so that her features are scarcely dis-
cernible.

The singer, disgusted and savage, gives her a violent
push, but fails to get free.

She clings to his coat-tail, jabbering and shouting.

" Leave go, you drunken fool, or I'll give you into
custody ! "

" Ha ! ha ! ha ! " yells the hag. " Give me into custody,
will you? Look here, my fine gentleman, don't you know
me?"

She staggers back, and with a violent effort flings the
hair back from her face.

The women in the crowd jeer, the boys laugh, and the
respectable fringe gives a little cry of horror and loathing.

It is an awful face. It is the face of a woman not old yet,
and with the remnants still of what were once good looks.
But the cheeks are puffed and blotched with drink, a blow

io8 THREE BRASS BALLS.

has blackened one eye and laid open a portion of the cheek,
and dirt encrusts the whole.

The little cry of horror in the crowd is music in her ears.
She points to her hideous face, and stammers out with
many a drunken hiccup —

"Look at me! — ain't I a beauty? But I'm as good as
him. He's a mighty fine gentleman, with his carriage and
his diamonds, ain't he? Ask him who I am, curse him? "

She runs at the lion comique again, and seizes him,
crumpling and marking his beautiful shirt-front with her
filthy paws.

" Look in my face, Bill O'Howler, and deny it if you
can — ain't I your lawful wife — ain't I Mrs. O'Howler?"

The great man is deathly pale now, his lips tremble, and
he seems to gasp for breath. Collecting himself with an
effort, he seizes the woman by the wrists, and, flinging her
from him violently, leaps into his carriage and drives off
amid the yells of the mob.

*****

The great O'Howler had done his last "turn," and had
nearly broken down. The habitues of the chairman's table
wondered what was up with " O'H."

He did not stay to satisfy inquirers. He got away directly
he had finished his songs, and drove home instead of going,
as he usually did, to his club.

He was undoubtedly agitated and nervous, and he had
reason to be so. The hag who had assaulted him was his
lawful wife, the mother of his little girl, and for many years
Uie faithful sharer of his joys and sorrows. In the years
long ago, when he was only a linendrapers' assistant, toil-
ing for a paltry wage from eight in the morning till nine and
ten at night, this woman had been his faithful, lovino- wife.

A PAIR OF BLANKETS. 109

It had been a hard struggle then for bread, but they had
been very happy. Nelly had worked herself to the bone to
keep their little home comfortable and the baby tidy, and
he had always found comfort and rest at his humble little
hearth.

He was a good fellow then — that is he could sing a good
song and tell a good story, and among the married fellows
in the shop who had homes he was a great favourite, and
asked to their houses to supper now and then, and he
always gave them a song.

It was often said to him jocularly in those days that he
ought to get an engagement at a music-hall, and he began
by-and-by to think seriously of it.

The shoe pinched at home, for the wife fell ill, and his
paltry wages were quite inadequate to the requirements of
a medical attendant.

Pushed in a corner, the idea occurred to him to try and
get an engagement at a free-and-easy or public-house
concert, and he succeeded by this means in adding a trifle
a week to his income.

From that hour he advanced rapidly, and soon got an
engagement at a regular music-hall, where he became a
favourite, and gradually rose to the front rank of stardom.

But with his first success came his first great trouble.

His wife, who in the days of adversity had been a blessing
to him, now that he was prosperous grew to be a curse.

During her long illness she had been ordered to drink
port wine. Gradually she grew to crave for it, and soon
spirits took the place of wine.

She felt she wanted it " to keep her up." The old, old
story was told again. The craving grew and grew till it
developed into a disease.

no THREE BRASS BALLS.

The husband, away continually from home, scarcely
guessed how bad matters were at first, and some slight
desire to hide it from him acted as a small check upon the
woman's downward course.

But he found it all out presently, and then the last barrier
was broken.

Wider and wider grew the breach, till at last it was open
enmity — disgust on his part, hatred on hers. She followed
him to the halls then, drank at the bars, and annoved him.
Then came domestic brawls at home, quarrels, curses, and
blows. Lower and lower she fell into the abyss of drunken-
ness, till at last he left her, broke up the home, took his
daughter away with him, and made the wife a separate
allowance.

She spent it all in drink, threatened him, begged of him,
and made his life a misery. At last he promised her a large
sum to leave the country. She accepted it, and he thought
at last he was free.

He was a great star now, worshipped by the music-hall
habitues, wealthy and happy in the new home he had made,
where his daughter reigned like a little queen.

At home with Nelly, his little girl, the great O' Howler
was a different man. The yelling lion comique had disap-
peared, and there sat the happy, quiet father devoted to his
child, and sharing heartily in her innocent pleasures.

It was a relief to him after the coarse glitter and heartless
mockery of the music-halls to sit at home and talk with his
child, to wander with her on the sunny days through the
fields and lanes, and listen to her innocent prattle.

He dreamed no splendid dream for her ; he would rather
see her dead than on a public stage. Some day she might
love someone better than him, he thought, with a si°-h but

A PAIR OF BLANKETS. 1 1 1

he dismissed the idea, and pictured himself a grey-haired old
gentleman living in some quiet place far from the babel
roar, with Nelly for his little housekeeper and companion.

It was for her he worked ; it was her sweet face that
loomed upon him in fancy through the smoke and fumes of
the music-halls, and reconciled him to the coarse familiarity
of the cads and the insolent patronage of the swells.

He was a lion comique with a strident voice and a flash
style, but underneath the magnificent shirt-front and the
diamond studs there was an honest, loving heart filled now
with one image — that of his child.

It was for Nelly's sake more than his own that he was
terrified to know his wife was back again, pursuing him.

Soon after she went away he had broken it gently to the
child that her mamma was dead, and Nelly had mourned
awhile, as children mourn, and then forgotten.

He thought of the jeers that would greet him from his
companions if it were known this drunken hag was the wife
of the great star whom they all hated because he was so
successful. And the public ? What would they think if
they knew that while he was riding in his brougham his wife
was wandering the streets a drunken outcast.

And she was Nelly's mother, too. Oh, it was too horrible !

Yes ; for the child's sake he would make one more effort
to save his wife. It was not only the disgrace to him, it was
his child's name that also would be linked with the mother's
shame.

He searched, but he found her not. He advertised under
initials that a sum of money awaited her at the solicitors',
but she evidently never saw the paper.

For a time his life was a terror to him. Every night as
he sang his eye wandered nervously among the audience;

1 1 2 THREE BRA SS BALLS.

every time he passed from the hall to his carriage he
trembled lest he should be confronted by the drunken,
ragged outcast who bore his name.

But the months passed on and he heard no more of her,
and the fear wore off. And the summer mellowed into
autumn, and autumn shivered into winter, and Christmas
was round again, and the great O'Howler was king of the
pantomime at a house across the water.

*****

The pantomime season is approaching its termination at

the Theatre Royal , and the O' Howler's little daughter

has not seen it.

She wanted to see papa — funny papa — so badly, and
to-night he has brought her, and she sits alone in a private
box.

The great comique has told his brother and sister artists
that his daughter is present to-night, for he is very proud of
her, and the funny men and the beautiful ladies as they
dance and sing and play the fool all give a glance at the
stage box where Nelly sits entranced.

"What a beautiful little girl, O'H.," says the second low
comedian, who is playing an ogre. " When are you going
to bring her out ? "

" Never," is the emphatic answer.

" By-the-by, O'H.," says the man presently, still looking
towards the box, " I didn't know you were married."

"Didn't you?"

"No; I've never heard of a Mrs. O'H."

" She's dead," answers the great comique, and then he
turns sharply away and gets to the wing for his next
entrance.

When the opening of the pantomime was over Nelly was

A PAIR OF BLANKETS. 113

fetched round to papa's dressing-room, and when he was
ready they both went out at the stage-door.

There was a crowd round it listening to someone who
was talking, and every now and then there was a roar of
laughter

O' Howler clutched his child's hand and would have walked
rapidly past, for he did not wish her to hear the language of
the streets ; but suddenly he heard his own name, and stood
rooted to the spot.

" Here is O'Howler, missus," said a scene-shifter in the
crowd. " Now you'd better run away."

" Me ! " shrieked a voice that made the singer's blood
run cold. "Me run away! Not me! Where is he, the
wretch ? "

The crowd of supers and ballet-girls drew on one side,
and there, the centre of the jeering group, stood a drunken
and loathsome woman.

"The drunken old idiot says she's your wife, sir," said
the scene-shifter, touching his hat. " Shall I call a police-
man ? "

The hag shrieked with laughter.

"Yes; send for a policeman. Yah! He can't deny it.
Ain't I your lawful wife, Bill O'Howler?"

Suddenly she caught sight of the little girl, and rushed
' towards her with her arms extended.

Nelly shrieked as the terrible woman came near her,
^ but before anyone could interfere the hag had flung her
arms about the child's neck and had clasped her to her
ragfg'ed breast.

" My child," she whined ; " my child that they robbed me
of ! Ain't I your own dear mother, Nelly, eh ? "

The child, poisoned with the fiery breath of the dram-

11

ii4 THREE BRASS BALLS.

drinker, and crushed close to her frowsy rags, gave a cry
of horror ; but as the woman spoke she looked earnestly
into the bloated, disfigured face, and knew it again.

"Oh, mother, mother!" she wailed. "Poor mother!
We thought you were dead."

O' Howler dashed forward, and would have dragged Nelly
away from the filthy embraces of the drunkard, but the
crowd, astonished at the dramatic denouement of a street
comedy, had closed round the mother and child, and were
listening eagerly to the startling revelation.

Suddenly the crowd stood aside as if by magic, and the
star saw his wife in the grasp of a policeman.

" Now then, missus, come along," said the man.

Then he added, turning to a woman who accompanied
him, " Sure this is her ? "

"Sure enough, the thief! That's her as come and had
lodging at my house, and stole the things and pawned 'em
for drink, the wretch ! "

Mrs. O' Howler started up and let go poor Nelly, who,
seeing her mother in the clutch of a policeman, now clung
instinctively to her.

Mrs. O'Howler was fumbling in her pocket, when the
policeman caught her hand and forced it open.

In it was a pawn-ticket for a pair of blankets.

" Ah, you was goin' to throw that away, was you ? Here,
come along," said the officer, and taking her by the arm
he forced the woman towards the station.

The people followed.

The landlady held forth to them on her wrongs. She'd
housed and fed this woman and never got her rent, and had
to put up with her drunken, beastly ways, and she must
go and strip the place and pawn the things for drink.

A PAIR OF BLANKETS. 115

"And them there blankets," she added, " she have took
unbeknown to me this werry day off my own bed."

As her mother was dragged away amid the jeers of the
crowd, Nelly, sobbing, clung to her father, who had been a
silent spectator of the scene.

He had been glued to the spot ; he had been powerless
to speak. The event, so sudden and so horrible, had over-
whelmed him. But as his daughter took his hand and the
crowd passed away he bowed his head and moaned : —

" Oh, the shame — the bitter shame ! "

And even his coachman, who had seen and heard all,
pitied the lion comique, as, humiliated and heartbroken, he
stepped into his gorgeous equipage and said, in a voice
choked with emotion, " Home ! "

5{J 5(C 5JC 5|C 5$C

"Ellen O'Howler, a wretched-looking creature, who said
she was the wife of the well-known comic singer of that
name, was convicted of illegally pawning a pair of blankets,
the property of Mrs. Esther Johnson, and was sentenced to
six months' imprisonment."

That was the short paragraph which ran the round of the
papers and awoke some curious comment. Half the people,
however, who noted it at all believed the woman was a
drunkard, and that the statement was quite untrue.

But to O'Howler it brought unutterable agony.

He had not been called at the trial, and those of the
profession who had heard the stage-door story had carefully
avoided referring in any way to it in his presence.

Many of them had too many skeletons of their own not
to feel sympathy when a neighbour's popped unexpectedly
out of its cupboard.

It was at home with his daughter that O'Howler felt it

II 2

n6 THREE BRASS BALLS.

most. The child was at an age when all strange events
make deep impressions.

The sight of the mother she had thought dead in those
terrible rags and with those ghastly features had inexpressibly
shocked her, and now when she thought of that mother
dragged away to prison amid the jeers of a cruel crowd her
-sensitive heart was almost broken.

And she knew now that her mother was not only a
drunkard, but a thief. The story of the pawned blankets
had been yelled aloud by the indignant landlady in her
presence.

The comic singer and his daughter sat alone in their
beautiful house now, and there was heard no pleasant sound
of laughter.

Between them always there rose up the awful figure of
the wife and the mother, the drunken outcast and the
convicted thief.

Bitter shame rested upon the name they bore, and it
could not be changed or concealed.

It stared at them in letters two feet high from the
hoardings ; it flaunted itself outside the great music-halls in
the full blaze of gas stars and flaring jets.

*****

The months have passed away and the days are coming
when the wretched woman will be free once more.

O' Howler has vowed, for his own sake and the child's, to
get her out of the country ere she brings further shame
upon them.

But the world troubles itself little with his awful sorrow,
and guesses not the load of agony he carries with him as he
strikes his jaunty attitudes upon the stage and yells out the
merry songs that the street boys whistle from pole to pole.

A PAIR OF BLANKETS. u 7

They see his name on the hoardings, these street boys;
they hear of his princely salary; ami sometimes, on a
Saturday night, they spend a hard-earned sixpence to get
into the gallery and listen to him. They envy him and
think of his diamonds and his glory.

But they do not know how, when the lights are out and
the plaudits are heard no more, the lion comique would give
all his fame and all his wealth to be as lighthearted and hard
up and free from trouble as the humble office-boy that envies
him his magnificence.

But there is one treasure that he would never part with.
It is the knowledge that he possesses it which sustains him,
in his terrible affliction.

When the grey shadows pass across his face, and he sits-
and thinks of the old days when he was a toiling linen-
drapers' assistant, poor and unknown, but happy, a sweet
voice breaks upon his reverie, and looking down he sees
two eyes upturned to him full of truth and love.

And bending down to kiss the fair young face, he thanks
God that the wretched woman who has marred his later life
bore him a child in his obscure poverty to lighten the load
of his present fame and wealth.

Pledge X.
A SURPLICE.

The Rev. James Dawson, irreverently known as
" Jemmy," was a great favourite in Bishop Orton. Bishop
Orton, a quiet, sleepy little market town in Essex, had
taken to the Rev. James from the day he came down third
class from London to enter on his duties as curate with a
carpet-bag in one hand and a gun-case in the other. He
was of the good old order of parsons, which is fast dying
out. He was fond of a drop of port when he could get it.
He would puff his long clay at the open window of his
lodgings, and he would drop into the Rose and Crown
parlour and ask if the landlady would oblige him with the
loan of last week's Bell's Life.

There was no pride about the Rev. James. He was
wofully poor, and he made no effort to conceal it. He had
to wear his clothes till they were threadbare, and his shirts
till they were frayed, and the tradespeople in Bishop Orton
could certify to the fact that he didn't spend his money in
the luxuries of the table.

Jones, the butcher, calculated that he had a pound of
meat twice a week, and Smith, the baker, swore that a loaf
lasted "Jemmy" four davs.

His duties were not heavy, for he had no week-day
services to conduct, but his stipend was small; £60 a year
was the magnificent price allowed to the rev. gentleman by
an absent vicar, whose income was hundreds.

A SURPLICE. 119

Now, up in London, bed-ridden, in a little back room,
lay a poor old lady, who had seen better days, but who was
now dependent on her only son. That son kept her, though
he was poor himself. He went without an overcoat and fire
in the winter that his old mother might have little com-
forts, and sometimes he went without food.

No one guessed the reason that the Bishop Orton curate
was so awfully shabby on his £60 a year, but twice a year
he went up to London to see this old bed-ridden lady in the
little back room. He was the good son, and this was the
mystery of his scanty meals and shabby clothes.

But he had one vice, one terrible vice, which was also an
extravagance. He was fond of shooting, and for the
purpose of shooting he kept a gun.

He was out with his gun whenever he got a chance of a
day's sport, and often and often he would carry it with him
on his visits to the poor, and leave it in the corner while he
chatted with the men and women.

If the women folk only were at home he stuck to business.
He gave a little good advice where it was wanted, and was
duly serious where seriousness was necessary. He had a
quiet way of laying down rules and regulations for guidance
in life — a plain, homely way that appealed not only to the
ears but to the hearts of the people, and three words from
the Rev. James Dawson were as good as a sermon from
anyone else.

But if the husband was at home and was a sportsman,
somehow or other he and "Jemmy" would begin talking
about dogs and horses, and the bull pup's points would be
discussed with animation, for the parson was reckoned a
tine judge of bulls and " tarriers."

The Rev. " Jemmy's" gun was a source of great terror

120 THREE BRASS BALLS.

to the old ladies. He was quite as ready to pray with art
old lady as he was to talk bull pups with her son or her
husband ; but though he flung his whole soul into it and was
far more earnest than the eye-rollers and whiners, the old
ladies were sometimes much more nervous about the state
of "Jemmy's" gun than about the state of their own souls.

Women are proverbially nervous of fire-arms, and the
sight of the Rev. " Jemmy's " gun in the corner was not
always pleasant to them.

Gradually, however, folks got quite used to it, and as,
after being carried about for a couple of years and deposited
in the corner of half the cottages in Bishop Orton, it had
never been known to go off, it was pronounced to be a
harmless creature.

The parson and his gun was a familiar sight in the streets
of Bishop Orton for a time, and then gradually folks began
to notice that the rev. gentleman didn't go shooting and
didn't carry a gun.

"What's become o' 'Jemmy's' gun?" asked the curious,
but nobody could say.

Once the butcher put it to the rev. gentleman plainly.

" Hoo is't thee niver goes shootin' neow, parson ?" he
asked one day.

The Rev. James smiled and shook his head and went on
his way, and so Jones concluded that the question wasn't an
agreeable one.

The truth is, that when the Rev. James arrived at Bishop
Orton he had, as you are aware, for luggage, in addition to
his gun-case, a carpet-bag. Now, this carpet-bag contained
his surplice, and that with his gun and the clothes he wore
constituted his earthly possessions.

One day a dreadful accident happened to that surplice.

A SURPLICE. i2t

It had been sent to wash to the house of a bull pup to give
the wife of the bull pup's master, who was a washerwoman,
a turn, and the bull pup, being left to his own devices in
the back garden, where it was hanging out to dry, did
sacrilegiously and wickedly, being doubtless lured thereto
by the Evil One, get it down and sport with it and worry
it, enjoying himself to such an extent that in a short space
of time it was in strips, and damaged beyond repair.

The washerwoman, horrified at the disaster, went to the
Rev. James's lodgings and told her tale with tears in her
eyes. She would make it good, she would buy another, and,
oh, she was so sorry — and ought the dog to be killed ?

The good soul had a faint idea that the act of impiety on
the part of the bull pup brought him under the anathema of
Mother Church.

The Rev. James was grieved, but he knew that the poor
woman was in a sore strait, and could ill afford to make
good his loss. In his easy-going way he comforted her.
The loss was nothing. The surplice was old. It was time
he bought himself another.

The good-hearted parson talked so glibly of his misfortune
that the washerwoman dried her eyes, and eventually trotted
off home fully persuaded that she had done the parson a
real service, and that the bull pup who was at the bottom of
the affair ought to becanonisedratherthan excommunicated.

When she was gone, and the Rev. James sat alone in his-
humble lodgings with his bread-and-cheese dinner in front
of him, he beean to review the situation, for it was a serious
one.

He must have a surplice to preach in on Sunday. There
was no one in the neighbourhood to lend him one. He
counted up all the money he had about him, and it wasn't

122 THREE BRASS BALLS.

enough. He must send the order to town that day and
enclose a P.O.O., and he hadn't sufficient. His little means
had been terribly crippled of late. The poor old bed-ridden
mother had been worse, and all he could spare had gone to
her. Suddenly his eye rested on his gun.

He would sell it !

He shuddered. His gun had a history. It had been his
elder brother's — had belonged to poor dead Ned, and it was
all he had left to remind him of their lifelong love for each
other. No ; he couldn't sell it.

He went out for a little walk to think, and walking he
passed the shop of Mr. Sweetapple, the pawnbroker. He
stopped and looked at the pledges in the window. One was
a gun. Why shouldn't he pledge his gun ? It wouldn't be
parting with it.

Half an hour afterwards the sole companion of his life
had gone from its accustomed resting-place. The pawn-
broker had it, and the Rev. James carried a ticket for it in
his waistcoat pocket.

It was a long time before Bishop Orton saw "Jemmy"
go by with his gun again, but everybody noticed next
Sunday that he had a new surplice on.

*****

The mellow autumn came round and the crack of the
gun was heard continually in the pleasant woods of Bishop
Orton. The Rev. James tried not to listen to it. It
touched a tender chord in his heart.

Sitting at home with the window open to let in the
bright afternoon sunshine, his eyes would .wander far awav
to where the golden light tipped the red and brown leaves
of the thickets, and where of old he had had many a day's
quiet sport.

A SURPLICE. I23

Then he would heave a sigh and look sorrowfully at the
corner where his dear old gun had stood.

He hadn't many pleasures in life, God knows. He was
rusting away body and mind among the boors, who treated
him as hail fellow well met, and whose Sunday clothes
made his poor old suit of threadbare black look doubly
seedy. He wanted something to rouse him ; something to
oring back the memory of old times.

Thinking of his gun he thought of the dear brother, whose
hand, now cold in death, had clasped it so often. Poor old
Ned ! He lay in a nameless grave far away under the
Russian snows with a heap of other brave fellows who had
fought and died in the cruel Crimean war.

The Rev. James grew sentimental. The autumnal glow,
the fair prospect of the mellow-tinted woods, and the
musical crack of the far-off guns woke all the dormant
poetry of his nature. O for an hour with the dear old gun
again !

The pawnbroker's shop was only two minutes' walk. He
could get it out for a day. But to get it out money was
wanted. He had no money to spare. The poor old mother
wanted it all now. He remembered why he had pawned
his gun, and swiftly an idea shaped itself. His new surplice
owed a debt of gratitude to his gun. Why should it not be
paid?

It took him some time to make up his mind to an act
which at first seemed inexcusable. But gradually he argued
himself out of any little compunction he might at first have
had, and before the sun went down he had a ticket for
his surplice in his pocket and the dear old gun stood in
the corner that had missed it so long.

The Rev. James made a fool of himself over that gun.

i24 THREE BRASS BALLS.

He hugged it like a baby, he kissed it and cried over it.
And the next day he marched it in triumph through the
streets, and Bishop Orton exclaimed with one voice, "Why,
' Temmy's ' out wi' his gun again ! "

But the poor parson's pleasure was short-lived. Satur-
day came, and the surplice had to come out ; so in went
the gun. But on Monday the surplice was not wanted and
the gun was. What had been done once could be done
again. In went the surplice, and out came the gun. And
by-and-by Mr. Sweetapple, who was discretion itself, knew
that as sure as Saturday came he should have the Rev.
"Jemmy's" gun to mind, and as sure as Monday came he
should have his surplice.*

*****

It was nine o'clock on Friday night in Bishop Orton, and
the streets were just getting quiet. A few groups stood
about in the market-placeand outside the beerhouses, talking.

The shop of Mr. Sweetapple, the pawnbroker, was in the
market-piace. It was all close shut and barred, and the
proprietor, his wife and daughter, were out at a friend's
house spending the evening.

The eldest son was left at home to mind the place, and
he had grumbled very much at not being allowed to join
the family party. This was known because subsequently
his words and acts were sworn to in a court of justice.

At seven the place was closed up, and the assistant went
away, leaving young Sweetapple alone in the house. At
nine the folks standing about the market-place detected a

* This curious arrangement was carried out exactly as here described.
The Eev. " Jemmy " has long since gone over to the majority, but the
pawnbroker still lives; and the subsequent events here detailed are well
remembered by every inhabitant of Bishop Orton.

A SURPLICE.

125

smell of burning, and began to glance about them ; in a few
minutes they noticed a red glare in the upper windows ol
the pawnbroker's shop, and then young Sweetapple came
rushing out crying aloud that the place was on fire.

In a short time the market-place was full of people. The
cry had gone round that the pawnbroker's was on fire.
Men tore madly off for the engines, the flames burst through
the roof and roared up towards the sky.

The crowd in the market-place grew and grew, some
maniac rushed off and rang the church bells, and the people
came pouring in from the outlying villages.

Tears and lamentations, groans and curses, filled the air
The poor folks wailed forth piteous tales of ruin, dilating on
the household gods they had entrusted to the care of their
" uncle " ; and still the flames rolled on.

Help came at last. The engines thundered into the
market-place, the crowd surged to and fro, and the police
beat the people back that the firemen might work.

Over the roar of the fire and the hissing of the water
that played upon the burning walls there rose the cries of
an angry populace whose belongings were being sacrificed
before their very eyes.

The poor people were loudest in their cries and ejacula-
tions as bundle after bundle of clothing, furniture, bedding,
fire-irons, pictures, and all the miscellaneous articles of a
pawnbroker's stock were hurled into the street.

What was the fabled shower of frogs to the showers of
flannel petticoats and flat-irons that burst upon the
astonished gaze of Bishop Orton as the firemen rushed in
co rescue what they might !

But it was not the people who made the most noise that
suffered most.

126 THREE BRASS BALLS.

Standing among the crowd were hundreds of well-dressed
folks, respectable householders, tradespeople, and profes-
sional men, who were supposed not to know what a
"duplicate" meant, and it was evident from their pale and
anxious faces that they had a personal interest in the
pledges now rapidly becoming burnt offerings.

Even the squire from the hall came galloping in on his
coal-black mare, and when he reined up in the market-place
cried out with an oath that his family plate was in the
pawnbroker's keeping.

Among the great crowd, all more or less personally in-
terested in the destruction of property still going on, no one
noticed the parson.

But he stood there, a little way apart, watching the pro-
gress of the flames with a pale face and trembling lips.

" Thank God I'vegot poor Ned's gun safe!" he murmured.

That was his only consolation. There in the universal
wreck he knew his surplice must be. Shame had come
that night to many a one in Bishop Orton, but to none did
it come so vividly as to poor parson "Jemmy " as he thought
that now all his parishioners would know he had pawned
his surplice.

To-morrow was Saturday If when the fire was out it
was found to be destroyed — and there seemed little chance
that anything but the jewellery and plate could be saved —
whatever should he do ?

Still, in the middle of all his trouble he kept murmuring,
" Thank God I've got poor Ned's gun ! "

By eleven o'clock the fire was got under, and the police
took possession, or the people would have broken through
and searched for their imperilled belongings among the
debris.

A SURPLICE. 127

It was one before the crowd thinned down and broke up.
That night there were heavy hearts in Bishop Orton, and
none heavier than that of the penniless clergyman, Avho
wondered what on earth he should do on Sunday for a
surplice.

3|C ^f» *|* ^% *y*

On Saturday there was greater excitement than ever in
Bishop Orton. The fire was declared to be the result of
design, and that afternoon young Sweetapple was arrested
and lodged in gaol on the charge.

It was sworn at the subsequent trial that he had been
heard to threaten his father should repent not allowing him
to go out, and it was proved that he had been down in that
part of the building where the fire originated with a light.

With him I have nothing to do here. The trial, after
many adjournments, was concluded, and when all the
evidence had been heard, a jury acquitted the lad of the
crime charged against him.

How the fire originated does not much matter. Its
consequences to the townfolkand the neighbouring villagers
were terrible.

So many secrets had slipped out in the excitement of the
moment that half the people were ashamed to talk about it
at all.

Folks who had always been supposed to be wealthy were
proved to have pawned their plate. Pictures missing from
drawing-rooms, and supposed to have been sent to London
to be re-framed, were accounted for, and more than one
tradesman in the town stood guilty on his own confession of
having entrusted a portion of his stock to the loving
avuncular guardianship of Mr. Sweetapple.

The air of Bishop Orton was heavy with scandal, and the

1 28 THREE BRASS BALLS.

editor of the local organ, who was wont to be terribly wittv
in his leaders, was obliged to handle the subject very
gingerly.

Had he not howled aloud in his misery that the timepiece
presented to him by the town as a testimonial, and a mark
of parochial gratitude for his glorious battle in defence of
the parish pump, was in the fiery furnace?

All day Saturday the town talked of nothing but the fire
and the arrest of young Sweetapple, and on Sunday mornin°-
the church was crowded, for everybody wanted to see
everybody else and renew the discussion.

Several gentlemen did not put in an appearance, owin°-
to a little accident to their Sunday suits, and more than one
lady preferred staying away to showing by her diminished
finery that the great event had affected her wardrobe.

Still, the church was crammed when the Rev James
Dawson took his place.

His face was very pale as he came from the vestry, but
he walked to his desk with a firm step.

And then first a general " Oh ! " and next a titter ran
through the sacred edifice.

The rev. gentleman's surplice was burnt in three places !
*****

Parson "Jemmy," as the folks of Bishop Orton used to
■call their good-hearted pastor, got over the shame and
humiliation of that burnt surplice in time, and his flock
thought none the worse of him for it.

They learned through it the sore straits to which his
poverty and the burden of a poor bed-ridden old mother
had reduced him.

They learned, too, in time, the life of self-denial he had
Hcd that he might minister to her wants, and it came to the

A SURPLICE. 129

ears of the county families. That winter "a testimonial to
the Rev. James Dawson " was announced, and a good round
sum subscribed — a sum so round that it lit up the dull, grey
sky of his life with pleasant sunbeams, and enabled him to
soothe his mother's last hours with many comforts she must
otherwise have gone without.

Ned's gun went no more to Mr. Sweetapple's, neither
did the brand-new surplice his congregation presented him
with.

There are hundreds of poor, starving clergymen in this
land of ours — Christian gentlemen who toil on and bear their
heavy burden without a sigh. Should any such light upon
this true story, I hope they will not rush away and incon-
tinently imitate the Rev. '' Jemmy."

I am not at all sure that all congregations would act so
kindly and thoughtfully as did the Bishop Ortonites if they
found out that their parson was in the habit of "popping
his surplice.

>>

Pledge XL
A SILVER WATCH.

" Play you another fifty up, and bet you a dollar on the
game ! "

The speaker was one of the flash young gentlemen
who haunt suburban billiard-rooms, who carry chalk in their
pockets, and call the marker " Jack."

The person spoken to was a well-dressed youth, with b
refined, pleasing face, but pale and careworn.

"No, thanks," he answered, "I'll pay you what I've
lost, and go. I have an appointment." He pulled a few
shillings from his pocket and handed them to his opponent,
paid for the table, and left the room.

" What's the matter with the young 'un, Jack ? " said the
flash young gentleman to the marker ; " he seems down in
the mouth."

The marker gave a knowing wink. " He's goin' where
two or three o' the young coves as used to come here 's
gorn. To the devil."

*****

Outside the Lord Elgin, right under the big red
lamp on which the legend "Billiards and Pool" was
inscribed in milk-white letters, Carl Hartzberg stood
thinking.

It was he who had just left the billiard-room above, and
he was waiting here because he had an appointment. He
was expecting his "young lady."

A SILVER WATCH 131

She came round the corner presently, a pretty,
modest-looking girl, apparently about the same age as
Carl.

He met her in a brusque, off-hand way, and said sharply,
" I thought I told you to be here at nine? "

'■' Yes, dear, but I couldn't get away before. I was kept
late at the warehouse."

" All right, Lottie. Forgive me. I'm cross and out of
sorts to-night. I'm in great trouble."

"Oh, Carl, what trouble ?"

The girl looked up at him with anxious eyes.

" Well, I can't tell you all " — here the lad's voice trembled
■ — " but I'm afraid I must go away."

The girl caught his arm and clutched it nervously.

" Carl, don't deceive me. Tell me, are you not in
trouble about money? Oh, I knew," she went on when
he made no reply, " I knew that those young fellows
you have been about with would do you no good.
Oh, Carl, why didn't you see more of me, and less of
them ? "

" God help me, Lottie, I wish I had. If I'd listened to
you I should never have been in the mess I am in now."

"Tell me the worst, Carl."

She looked so earnestly into his face that the young man
changed colour.

" The worst ! What do you mean ? " he stammered.

" Do you think I have been blind all these months, Carl?
You have been betting and gambling. Where has the
money come from ? "

" Listen, Lottie, and I'll tell you. I shall feel easier
when it's off my mind. When I got hard up and couldn't
pay what I lost over the races and the billiards, I — I

THREE BRASS BALLS.

borrowed some money in the City. I meant to pay it back,
■upon my soul I did. I used the money I collected for the
firm, little sums of five and six pounds. I was sure I should
win over the Derby and be able to pay them back, and I
lost, and now, oh, Lottie, I don't know what I shall do.
The quarterly accounts were sent in again to-night, and to-
morrow all will be known."

The girl's face had gone whiter and whiter as her young
sweetheart stammered out his dreadful story.

She had not suspected this. She knew he was a clerk
in the City, and that his salary was small, and she knew he
-could not afford to gamble and keep fast company night
after night. But the worst she had anticipated was that he
;had run into debt.

For a time the shock was so terrible she could not
speak.

Carl misinterpreted her silence.

" Lottie," he cried, with a trembling voice, "you despise
me, you shrink away from me. I deserve it."

She was by his side in a moment.

" No, Carl — no. I love you as I never loved you before,
and I pity you. Let others judge you harshly, I will not.
Oh, Carl, Carl ! I would have given my life to have saved
you this shame."

He caught her to his breast in the quiet street.

" God bless you, Lottie, for those words. They will com-
fort me when I am far away-"

" Far away ! "

"Yes; I must seek safety in flight. I cannot face the
exposure, and perhaps — perhaps the dock.' 5

The girl shuddered.

" Yes/' he continued, " I will tell you all. To-morrow

A SILVER WATCH

1 shall get away. I will write to you, but you must never
let anyone know my address."

" And your father and mother, Carl? It will kill them."

" Don't talk like that, Lottie, or I shall go mad. Poor
mother ! — poor old dad ! — I dare not tell them. You
must go to them when I am gone and break it gently to
them."

Talking earnestly, the girl and her lover went through
the quiet streets. At ten o'clock Carl left Lottie at
her mother's door, and kissing her passionately hurried
home.

*****

Carl Hartzberg the elder sat waiting for his boy to come
home.

Mrs. Hartzberg, who was an invalid, had gone to bed,,
and the old gentleman was left alone.

His face was grave and anxious, for these illnesses of
his wife's were becoming more and more serious. The
doctor said she required rest, and that her strength must
be kept up with delicacies. And Carl Hartzberg was poor.
He had had a hard fight with the world, and the task of
educating his family had told heavily on him. Twenty
years ago he had left his native land and wandered to the
famous home of freedom — the refuge for the exile of every
clime.

Carl Hartzberg in his hot youth had spoken too boldly
for the Fatherland. He had been compelled to fly with
his young wife and seek an alien shore. His name was
treasured still in the annals of his native town. It was a
name which had been borne in the quaint old German stadt
for generations unblemished. But Carl had dared to be a
Radical and zealous in the cause of liberty.

134 THREE BRASS BALLS.

So when danger threatened he had wandered forth and
found a home among strangers. He had had to begin life
anew, but, aided by his faithful Gretchen, he had struggled
bravely, and the children that had been born to them had
always had a comfortable home. Now the poor old frau
had done her work, and the busy hands were weak. He,
too, was going down the hill, and once again trouble had
come to him.

In the great depression of trade the German firm for
whom he had been the English agent had failed, and that
very day he had received a letter from Hamburg stating
that his agency was closed.

Of his children only Carl was now left him. One son
had married and had a home of his own to keep together ;
another had gone to a far-away country and forgotten them;
and now Carl, his handsome Carl, was his sole comfort and
support.

Often when he felt the feebleness of age creeping on,
and thought of the day when he should be past work, he
comforted himself with the thought that Carl would help
them. Carl was clever, he would be a great man, and keep
his poor old father and mother, and hand down the name
untarnished to another generation.

Eleven struck, and as the chimes died away Carl let
himself in, and came to where his father sat.

"You are late, mein poy," said the old man, kindly

" Yes, father. I saw Lottie home."

" Ah ! And how is Mees Lottie ?"

" Oh, she's all right, father."

" I am glad of dat, mein sohn. She shall be just ze sort
of frau for you. Zebonnie Englisher madchen, dere is none
like zem."

A SILVER WATCH. i 35

Twenty years in England had not made old Hartzberg a
fluent talker.

" Sit you down, Carl. You are tired, mein sohn."

" Yes, I am, father, rather."

"You work too hard in ze Citee. Ah, you all be has
partner some fine day."

Carl gave an involuntary sigh.

" Ah, mein poy," said the old man, his eyes filling with
tears; " I sank Gott efry day He have gif me such a sohn.
Your mudder is veak, and I am an old man ; but you vill tak
care of us, vill not you, ven de poor old fadder can't not
vork no more ? "

A great sob rose in the young lad's throat. He ran to his
father and kissed him as he used to do when he was a little
child. Then, with a faltering voice, he cried, " God bless
you, dear old dad ! " and ran from the room, leaving the old
man in a state of amazement.

*****

The next morning Carl went into his mother's bed-
room, and bade her good day. She thought the tears in
his eyes were for her suffering, and she tried to comfort
him.

His father had gone out after the early breakfast, and
there was no one to notice that Carl carried his little
portmanteau out of the house with him.

That evening Lottie Curtis came with a white, frightened
face to see the old couple. She was Carl's messenger. He
had not dared to leave a confession behind him. To his
brave little sweetheart he entrusted the task of breaking the
awful news to his parents.

Lottie found the old gentleman alone, and bit by bit
stammered out her terrible secret.

136 THREE BRASS BALLS.

He seemed at first not to understand.

But when the full meaning of the girl's story — a tale told
with sobs and tears — dawned upon the unhappy father, a
spasm of fearful anguish swept across his face, leaving the
features distorted.

For a brief space a terrible silence reigned ; then, with a
wild cry, he fell upon his knees, and raising his trembling
hands to heaven, moaned aloud, " Oh, Gott, forgif him ; Oh,
mein sohn, mein sohn ! "

Presently Lottie calmed him a little, and he clasped her
hand and clung to her. She was something for him to love
now. She had seen his boy last. But he broke down again,
and, laying his head upon the girl's shoulder, sobbed like a
child.

Night fell upon the little household and found the young
girl and the old man still in tears. The two broken hearts
clung to each other in their agony, and it was late ere they
parted. Then the father went sadly up stairs and laid him
down bv the side of the old wife, and told her the first lie
his lips had ever uttered.

" Carl has had to go into the country for the firm,
Gretchen," he said. " He sent for his portmanteau ; he
started in a hurry."

And the old lady smiled and blessed her boy. " See how
he is honoured by his employers," she whispered. " Ah,
Carl, I thank God for giving us such a son."

And down in a seaport town Carl Hartzberg lay that
night in a little inn, tortured with fear and remorse.

Ere he left he had sold all he possessed to raise sufficient
money to get away with.

But one thing he had not sold. It was the silver
watch which had been his grandfather's and his father's,

A SILVER WATCH

!37

and which his father had given him on his fourteenth
birthday. He could not part with that, for it was an
heirloom, and there was a legend in the family that to part
with it was unlucky ; but he needed every penny he could
get, so he pawned it, determining directly he earned some
money to send the ticket to Lottie with the sum lent on it.

*J> *\? vL. il»

»}^ *V' »P *T'

On the following day the firm discovered his defalcations,
and about the same time that the discovery was made Carl
Hartzberg's father called and was shown into their private
room.

The interview was a painful one. The old man, with
tearful eyes and a trembling voice, came to plead for mercy
— to beg that the good name he had won by twenty years
of honest work and upright conduct in the land of his
adoption might not be publicly disgraced.

He pleaded, too, for his boy He told them what a good
son he had been.

"And mein poor frau," he wailed, dashing the tears from
his eyes, " if she should know dis ting it vould kill her. I
am poor, shentlemen, but if I can pay dis money I vill starve
to save mein frau and mein sohn."

The partners were stern business men, but the sight of
the old man's agony overcame their first scruples. Thev
would promise nothing more than this, however — no active
search should be made for the present.

"You say he has gone away," said the senior partner.
" Well, let him keep away. If he returns to London he
must be arrested. If he comes within reach, and we take no
steps, it will be said that we can be robbed with impunity
We should have to prosecute him as an example to the
others."

138 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The old gentleman thanked the partners, and with a
bowed head went sadly home.

*****

Carl's mother in time learned the truth.

The shock was terrible, but Lottie was a ministering
angel then. She came to them, and buoyed the poor
mother's heart with hope. Carl was safe somewhere, and
he would soon write to her.

Sure enough a letter came, telling her he had been lucky
— that under an assumed name he had got work. He had
pretended that he had come over from Germany to get a
situation, and as someone was wanted who spoke German
he got the place without a character. The letter was full of
repentance and remorse, and promises to atone for the
past.

Lottie answered the letter, enclosing a line in the
mother's trembling hand — just a message of love and
forgiveness to her poor lamb that had gone astray.

A week afterwards Carl wrote again, enclosing Lottie the
ticket of the silver watch, and bidding her take care of it
till he sent her the money to redeem it.

The letter was never delivered, but three days afterwards
a postman was arrested charged with stealing letters. His
lodgings were searched, and among other things found
there was Carl's letter containing the pawn-ticket. Carl
was wanted as a witness by the Post Office authorities.
There was an address in the letter, and the ticket was made
out to Carl Hartzberg, No. , St. Mary-axe.

Carl had pawned his watch in the City the day before
his flight, and the pawnbroker's shop being opposite his
employer's place of business, the assistant knew him, and
put down his right address.

A SILVER WATCH. i 39

A clerk from the solicitor's office went to St. Mary-axe
with the ticket and asked for Carl Hartzberg. He was re-
ferred to the senior partner, and explained his business.

" I called here to see if the owner was here," he said,
" before sending to Portsmouth."

"Oh," said the senior partner; "then you have his
address at Portsmouth."

" Yes. It is on the letter in which the ticket was
enclosed. (Pulling out the letter.) Here it is."

The senior partner took the letter, made a note of the
address, and returned it to the clerk.

" You will subpcena him from Portsmouth, I suppose ? "
he said.

" As he is not here, certainly. He will be an important
witness."

" You can save yourself the trouble. He will be in
London the day after to-morrow, and I will let you know
his address."

The clerk went away, and that afternoon a City police-
officer went down to Portsmouth with the warrant for the
arrest of Carl Hartzberg the younger.

The junior partner was away collecting orders and cash
in the country, and the senior partner acted according to
his own notions.

" His name will be in the paper over this post office rob-
bery," he said, " and the clerks will say we don't mind
being robbed if we take no steps. Better take them at
once than let it appear they are forced on us."

*****

Carl Hartzberg returning to his lodgings in Portsmouth
that night found a tall man waiting to see him.

He o-ave a little cry of fear, for the thought of arrest was

140 THREE BRASS BALLS.

always in his mind, and turned to run, but it was too late-
The tall man stood in front of the door

" Come quietly, young gentleman, and then there'll be no
disgrace," he said. " I'm your brother, and I've come to
see you, and Ave are going out for a walk. You don't want
to be handcuffed, do you ? "

The lad, alternately white with fear and red with shame,
shook his head.

That night they went up to London by the mail train.
Half-way there was a terrific crash. Carl went flying
against the detective, and both of them lay very still
with a lot of things on top of them, and then the air was
filled with shrieks and groans. Carl wriggled out feeling
stunned and bruised, but the detective lay quite still.

When Carl had shaken himself he looked about him, and
a fearful sight met his eyes.

They had run into a train of trucks, and a lot of the
carriages were smashed. The line was strewn with the
wreckage, and in the dim light he could see people fighting
and struggling among the debris.

Those who were unhurt leapt out of the carriages and
helped to extricate whom they could. Some were beyond
help, terribly crushed and mangled, and dead. Carl stood
like a man in a dream, and rubbed his eyes, wondering
where he was.

Presently he heard a stifled groan. There was a o-entle-
man lying under the wreck of a first-class carriage. Carl
rushed to him, and proceeded to throw the cushions and
seats and the portmanteaus off him.

Soon he had him free, and then he dragged him out and
laid him on the bank.

He was quite senseless. The other people w*?re working

A SILVER WATCH. 141

away at the sufferers still in the wreck, and Carl called to
them in vain. if he only had a drop of brandy !

Something shining caught his eye. He ran to the broken-
down carriage. It was the gentleman's brandy flask, and
there also, beside it, was a canvas bag.

Carl picked it up. It was very heavy.

The gentleman still lay senseless on the bank, so Carl
poured some brandy into his mouth.

Gradually he gathered his senses together and sat up.
Then Carl said to him, " Sir, here is a bag of money I
found in the wreck of your carriage. Does it belong to
you?"

" Yes," said the gentleman eagerly. " Oh, thank you.
There is nearly a thousand pounds there ! "

The voice startled the lad. He looked earnestly in the
gentleman's face, then gave a cry of shame.

It was the junior partner of the firm he had robbed of
about five-and-twenty pounds.

The cry astonished the gentleman.

Then he, too, recognised his deliverer in the lad who had
given him a thousand pounds when he might have run off
with it and no one have been the wiser.

Carl told his story, and then they both went to look for
the detective.

They found him laid on the bank, covered with a rug.
He was dead.

Vf, 5|C "T* JjC 5(»

A fortnight afterwards there was a little family party at
the house of Herr Hartzberg.

First, there was the old man himself, with a long absent
smile once more lighting up his kind old face ; then there
was the frau in an easy chair, propped up with pillows, and

H2 THREE BRASS BALLS.

looking, with a whole world of love in her eyes, at a young
couple who sat opposite to her.

One of them was Lottie Curtis, a bright red blush upon
her cheeks, and her little hand clasped, O so tightly ! by a
young gentleman whom we have seen before.

The junior partner had been grateful both for his life and
his money. When he returned to London with a full
knowledge of the lad's story, he went straight to the
magistrate who had granted the warrant and explained that
circumstances had come to light which induced him to
withdraw from the prosecution.

The junior partner did more than this. He was so
convinced that Carl had been tempted to take the money
fully intending to pay it back, and that he had bitterly
repented, that he determined to give him another
chance, and so the lad was to travel for them at a good
salary.

It is the night before Carl starts on his first journey, and
mother and father and Lottie are all with him talking over
the great event.

"Ah, Carl," says the father, "the good Gott has heard
mein prayers and gif me pack mein sohn again."

The old mother puts out her thin hand and takes her
boy's, and strokes it, and as he comes nearer to her and
drops at her feet, she lays that trembling hand upon his curly
hair and blesses him.

And somehow Lottie has crept up to her, and presently
she kneels too, and then the old lady, her eyes filling with
tears, blesses them both.

Supper comes, and sentiment disappears for a time with
the savoury smell of the good housewife's little German
dishes.

A SILVER WATCH 143

At supper Carl pulls out his watch to look at the time,
rle has given his evidence, claimed the ticket, and
•edeemed it.

" I shall never part with this again, father," he says,
is he puts it gently back ; " but it didn't bring me such bad
uck, after all ; for if I hadn't pawned it the pawn-ticket
wouldn't have been stolen, and I should still have been an
sutcast."

" The ways of Providence are mysterious, mein sohn ; let
us tank the good Gott for His mercy "

Pledge XII.
A PAIR OF BOOTS.

Barton'S-BUILDINGS was doomed. The fiat had gone
forth that the world should know Barton's-buildings no
more.

It was a vile, unholy place — a collection of crazy tene-
ments where the poorest of the poor herded together in
squalor and filth and pestilence. It was a place where men,
women, and children lay together twenty in a room, like
pigs in a sty, where fever and disease were always to be
found and a policeman very seldom.

It had a bad name had Barton's-buildings, and when
people heard that it was to be pulled down under the pro-
visions of the Artisans Dwellings Act, it was felt that an
eyesore was about to disappear from the metropolis.

It was the last day in Barton's-buildinsrs.

From early morning tne narrow street had been blocked
with the goods of the colony

Up from cellars and kitchens, down from top floors
and garrets, came the inhabitants, laden with such things
as they possessed.

They had lingered on till the last, many of these poor
creatures refusing to stir until the strong arm of the law
forced them from their hiding-place.

The police were in the alley, the inspector had been
from house to house ; tears and oaths were alike ineffectual
— the hour had come, and the little colony must wander

A PAIR OF BOOTS. 145

forth and settle where it could. To-morrow the pick and
the spade of the labourer would ring out loud and clear,
and brick by brick the place would be razed to the ground.

Slowly the people file out, bringing with them their scanty
treasures.

Here and there a truck is called into requisition by the
property-owners, the nobility of the buildings, who possess
something carryable in the shape of a bed and perhaps a
couple of chairs and a frying-pan.

But there are few families who cannot bear among them
their furniture and effects, for the effects, as a rule, are
small and the families are large.

It is a ghastly exodus, a procession of misery such as few
modern towns could furnish. It is in the heart of London,
the jewelled mistress of the cities, that penury and starva-
tion are to be found in their most terrible forms. It is in
the garden bright with flowers that the rankest weeds
abound.

Sorrowfully the outcasts come from the rookery that has
been their home for years. Vile and awful as the dens
were, they have become attached to them ; they have grown
used to the foul air, the reeking walls, and the crumbling
staircases. They have crept here at night and found
shelter ; wandering forth day by day to fight for bread, they
have known that hither could they bear it and find the
young in the nest, that they had somewhere to lay their
weary bones and aching heads, somewhere to call "home."

The bulk of the last lingerers have passed away, some to
other rookeries, some to the workhouse, some to shelter
which they have procured at the cost of half their poor
earnings.

Day by day, as the old haunts of the poor are destroyed

K

i 4 6 THREE BRASS BALLS.

to make room for palatial "model lodgings "and "artisans''
dwellings," it has become a harder task for them to find
shelter. The gorgeous buildings reared on the site of their
vaunted homes are far beyond their humble means, and the
few existing places of the old-fashioned sort are crammed
to suffocation.

But go forth they must and look for shelter " some-
where." It is not the duty of the law to inquire where,
but to make them " move on."

Out of Barton's-buildings the exiles pass, lingering sadly
as they go. Old men and women come out like rats from
their holes, blinking in the daylight — some of them so aged
and infirm that they have to be borne in the arms of their
kindred.

Here comes a strange creature with blurred features and
misshapen limbs, trembling in her yellow rags and moaning
with terror. It is ten long years since she saw the outer
world. Why ? That no one can tell you. There are
mysteries in the courts and alleys of Babylon that none can
divine.

There go an old man and woman, with their little grand-
daughter guiding their tottering steps. The old man and
his wife made toys, and the child took them out and sold
them. The man is half imbecile, and he is crying and
saying that he shall die in the streets. He has lived his life
in Barton's-buildings, and has taken root there.

So through the long day the panorama of human
wretchedness passes before the eyes of the official on-
looker. His task is nearly over, the houses are all but
empty. Those who remain will be flung into the street if
they refuse to go, and their belongings, if they have any, will be
flung after theim. and then the work of ejection will be done.

A PAIR OF BOOTS. 147

The police make another tour of inspection. All gone.
Nothing but filth and rubbish and rags left now to tell of
the vanished colony.

Stay. What is this lying here, at the foot of the stairs?
A woman. And over her bends a man — a thin, wretched
creature, with sunken eyes and haggard cheeks. He has
dragged himself from the rags where he lay, the ague
racking his every bone, and has taken his blind wife by the
hand and told her that the hour has come — that they must
wander forth into the streets.

Down from the attic he has crawled with trembling knees,
leading the sightless creature, the only thing to care for him
that he has left.

Five years ago Nelly Stevens looked upon her husband's
face one winter morning for the last time. The state of
life into which it had pleased God to call her was to toy
with sudden death for a paltry wage at a great firework
factory. When the usual explosion came Nelly was dragged
out from a heap of mangled women.

Some were dying, some were dead and dismembered.
Nelly was one of the lucky ones. She only lost her eyes,
and could do no more work for the remainder of her
days.

To the hospital in due time came her husband, and led
her back to the only home he could afford, now that he had
to work for both.

For he too played with death that he might live, but it
was a longer game than Nell's. Death came slowly to the
looking-glass silverer. The long hours in a close room
absorbing the mercury into the system led rather to disable-
ment than death. There is a delightful condition of
body called the shakes which comes to silverers after a time.

148 THREE BRASS BALLS.

It is a modified sort of St. Vitus's dance, a trembling of the
limbs and a perpetual quivering of the muscles.

Jack was down with the shakes about the time Nelly's
eyes were lost that boys might have cheap squibs and
crackers, and, of course, he was no use as a silverer. There
weren't many jobs that a man with dancing arms and legs
could do, and Jack dropped from thirty shillings a week to
twelve. At that price the fragments of a constitution still
left to him were utilised.

So it came about that the shaky husband and the blind
wife drifted to an attic in Barton's-buildings, and there
they struggled on with love and an occasional meal to cheer
them.

Jack had only one comfort in his wife's blindness. She
couldn't see the wreck he had become. It was only when
in the cold night they huddled close together for warmth
that she felt the arm round her quivering and trembling.
That was the cold, he told her, and took it away.

Perhaps it was a blessing too when the food ran short,
and Jack was able to put it all on her side of the table and
make a great noise with his jaws, and smack his lips with a
fidelity to nature worthy of a pantomimic artist.

But blind people have keen perceptions, and Nelly
soon found out that her husband was growing weaker and
weaker, and that the fatal mercury had too surely done its
work.

His flesh and blood were utilised in outdoor work. He
was a sort of human scarecrow to frighten thievish boys
and old ladies in search of firewood from a builder's yard,
and, having the necessary mercury in his system, he became
a human barometer. It was the winter and the wet weather
that found out the weak spot. He suffered agonies with

A PAIR OF BOOTS. 149

rheumatism and ague, but he battled on bravely and
brought his twelve shillings a week home regularly to his
blind wife.

Things were at their worst when Barton's-buildings was
doomed. Long exposure to the weather had broken up the
human barometer, and he couldn't stand in the yard. He
hadn't been to work for a fortnight v;hen the last day came,,
and Nelly had cried her heart out over him, for his moans
told her the anguish he was suffering, and the tears had
poured down from her sightless eyes on to his cheeks as she
bent over him and comforted him.

They had kept body and soul together as the poor do.
Their little possessions were all in safe keeping in a
beautiful fireproof warehouse.

The ejectment notice had struck dismay into their
hearts. Like many another member of the colony, they
had lingered on till the last because they had nowhere else
to go.

But when the day came and the tramp of the neighbours
and the bustle below told them that the utmost limit of
indulgence was passed, then and then only did the full
horror of the situation burst upon them.

Go they must. What was it to the law that death and
starvation lay before them ? Their attic was wanted that
the "artisan" might have a suite of apartments in a palatial
hotel. The Government had taken the artisan under its
protection, in order that he might have rooms at from ten
to fifteen shillings a week, instead of paying, as heretofore,
the extravagant sum of five shillings and seven and six-
pence, or wasting his substance on a nice little cottage with
a garden in the suburbs for about four.

Jack crawled from his rags, shouldered his bundle, and

150 THREE BRASS BALLS.

took his blind wife by the hand, for the hour had come, and
they were driven out. Shaking and trembling, and racked
with pain, he got her down to the foot of the staircase, and
then she gave way, as weak women will, and fell down and
cried to think that they were leaving the shelter of that vile
place which had been home to them so long.

The policeman was used to such sights by this time, and
so he just bade them " Come out of that " in the kindest
tone consistent with his uniform.

Then Nelly pulled herself together, and held out her hand,
and Jack took it and staggered out into the street.

" We must find somewhere to sleep to-night, Jack, dear."

" Ay, ay, my lass," he answered, looking back, " we'll
find a place — somewhere."

So the last couple passed out of Barton's-buildings, and
there was nothing to hinder the Artisans Dwellings Act
doing its noble work.

*****

Night came down on the London streets ; a cold, heart-
less night, with a keen, searching east wind. The street
lamps were lit, and the shops were gay with gas, when six
o'clock struck. But few people stopped to peer through
the plate-glass windows. The playful breeze had a trick of
darting round corners at you, and nipping your nose and
cutting your eyes, so coat collars were turned up and foot-
steps bent hastily homeward.

Toiling wearily along a main thoroughfare came the man
with the shakes leading his blind wife.

The east wind cut through him like a knife, and he
crawled along in the supremest physical agony, trying not
to shiver lest the sightless creature holding his hand should
know how cold and wretched he was.

A PAIR OF BOOTS. 151

On through the lighted thoroughfare they passed, till they
came to where the gas was dimmer and the shops less gay,
and so out into a northern suburb of the metropolis.

It was there that the only friend Jack had in the world,
an old fellow-workman, lived. Of him he was going to
crave shelter for awhile, till he could get a job and find
another home.

The thought of this refuge had buoyed him with hope
throughout the afternoon's tramp.

They reached the house and found strangers in it. Jack's
mate had left a fortnight since.

The door was shut in their faces, and the blind woman
and her husband turned their faces once more to the pitiless
night.

What was to be done ?

There was a common lodging-house not far off, but they
had no money.

" We must go to the casual ward, Nelly," the man said

presently, with a faltering voice. " There's no help for it."

The woman shuddered. Had it come to this at last ! O,

anything but that ! She was tired and faint, and burst out

crying.

They were just opposite a pawnbroker's then, and
suddenly an idea came to Jack.

"Stay there a minute, Nell," he said, "while I go and
ask the way."

Then he darted into the pawnbroker's, slipped off his
boots, which were still good, and they lent him a shilling on
them.

He came out and walked on a little way, and then gave a
cry of pleasure.

" Here's luck, Nell," he said, as cheerily as his chattering

152 THREE BRASS BALLS.

teeth would let him. " I've found a shilling in my pocket
You shall have a bed and a crust to-night, after all, Nell;
and to-morrow I'll go to work and earn something."

He felt the hand he held tighten in his. The terror of
the casual ward had passed away for a time. The pavement
numbed the shoeless feet terribly- An icy thrill shot up the
aching limbs to the heart, and seemed to grip it with fingers
of stone, but Jack kept bravely on his way till they came to
the spot where he knew the lodging-house used to be.

In its place they found a ruin — a wilderness of bricks and
rubbish.

And in the faint light of the quivering lamps Jack read
that this was the site of a new block of artisans' dwellings.

The shock of disappointment and despair completed the
work the cold and the fatigue had commenced. The brave
limbs failed at last, and Jack could go no further.

The blind wife felt his hand slip from hers, and heard him
sink to the ground.

" God help us this night, Nell," he moaned, " for I can go
no further. I've lost the use of my limbs."

" Oh, Jack, try. Let us go to the workhouse — anywhere.
The cold will kill you."

Jack staggered up and made a desperate effort, but
his limbs refused their office. He clung to his wife for
support.

Across the ruin he could see one house but half destroyed.
The walls and a portion of the roof still stood.

" If I can crawl yonder, Nell," he said presently, " I can
lie there a bit out of the wind. Hold me up and I'll lead
you."

Dragging himself as best he could across the heaps of
rubbish and scattered brick, his feet cut and gashed at every

A PAIR OF BOOTS. 153

step, Jack brought himself and his wife to the little havep
at last.

There was one corner quite out of the wind, and here he
fell down on a heap of rubbish and lay quite still.

He had fainted with the pain and fatigue and the exposure.
Nell called him, but he did not answer.
Then she knelt down and passed her hands along his
prostrate body.

She was terrified. Blind and alone in the dark night on
a rude tract of waste ground, what could she do ?
She must go for help at once.

Staggering and falling, groping blindly across the brick
heaps and mounds of rubbish, she went out into the night
calling, " Help ! Help ! "

Suddenly she felt a heavy blow on the forehead, and then
she knew no more. Wandering in her blind helplessness
she had come full force against the carcase of a half-
destroyed building, and the blow had stunned her.
*****
When consciousness returned to her she was warm and
comfortable, but her head ached and was wrapped in
bandages. She thought she had been dreaming, and had
just woke up in her own home in Barton's-buildings.
" Jack," she said softly, " where are you ? "
A woman's voice answered her.
" What is it, my dear ? "
Then she recollected all.

She sat up in an agony of fear, trying with her sightless
eyes to pierce the eternal darkness.

" Where ami?" she cried—" where' s Jack?"
" You're in the hospital," answered the woman. " Who's
Jack ? "

154 THREE BRASS BALLS

" My husband. Oh, please tell me where he is ! "

" My good soul, I dare say he's all right," answered the
woman, trying to comfort her. " Don't you worry yourself
— you must be quite still if you want to get well."

" How did I come here ? " asked Nell.

" You were found among the ruins where they've pulled
down the houses to build model lodgings," answered the
woman. "Somebody heard you calling for help, and they
found you lying senseless, with a nasty cut across your fore-
head."

" But Jack, my husband, did they find him too ?"

The nurse did not know what to say, but it was her
business to keep her patient quiet, and so she answered,
" Oh, yes, he's all right ! "

And then she forced the blind woman to lie still, and gave
her an opiate to send her to sleep again, for the wound was
dangerous, and any excitement might lead to bad con-
sequences.

As a matter of fact, Jack had not been found. When the
blind woman was discovered bleeding the cry for help was
explained, and she was carried away to the hospital.

Who was to know that among the ruins of one of the
dismantled houses lay a dying man ?

While she was unconscious in the ward of the hospital,
Jack lay senseless where he had fallen on the heap of
rubbish.

The night grew colder and colder, and the limbs of the
wanderer grew stiffer and stiffer.

He never woke from the syncope into which he had
fallen to miss the blind wife who had wandered forth for
help.

He lay there calm and still, paying no rent for two whole

A PAIR OF BOOTS. 155

days and nights, and when the workmen came to that part
of the ground and discovered a bootless tramp there was no
difficulty in finding a home for him.

In the parish mortuary, not yet swept away to make room
for artisans' dwellings, this tired toiler was allowed to lie
undisturbed by ejections.

They put beside him, for the purposes of identification,
all that was found upon him — a pawn-ticket for a pair of
boots.

* * * * *

On the spot where Barton's-buildings stood there is now
a block of magnificent houses, let out in suites of apartments.
Dainty muslin curtains and neat blinds grace the windows.
The " models" are governed by rules which require that all
the tenants shall be respectable. Etiquette is studied here
in all its branches. Gentlemen are requested not to lean out
of window in their shirtsleeves, and dogs and cats are not
allowed. Pianos on the three years' hire system are
plentiful.

Neat traps stop at the doors on Sundays, and little family
parties emerge elegantly attired for a drive.

These are the buildings designed and built under the
provisions of the Artisans Dwellings Act. It is to provide
these charming chambers that the poor are driven out into
the street to find shelter where they can or perish by the way.

To deny that the measure is beneficial in any sense would
be absurd. It is a boon to the large class of well-to-do
artisans, and clerks with moderate incomes, who don't want
to be bothered with a house, and who find it convenient to
be provided by philanthropy with elegant apartments at a
less price than they could obtain them of the ordinary
lodging-house keepers.

156 THREE BRASS BALLS.

For these the humbler artisans, and the myriad toilers
whose means of obtaining a livelihood are limited and
precarious, are driven forth; and daily they find the question,
"Where shall I lay my head?" an enigma so difficult of
solution that many of them give it up in despair and
compromise the matter by selecting the churchyard or the
workhouse.

Of those who wandered forth from Barton's-buildings, I
have but traced the fate of two. The shaky looking-glass
silverer is at rest where the parish put him. He has found
lodgings at last where he will lie until the burial-ground is
required for " artisans' dwellings," and then perhaps his
thinly-covered bones may be thrown up with the shovel and
" moved on " once more.

Tramping from casual ward to casual ward goes a poor
sightless, ragged creature who once called the dead man
husband. No loving hand leads her footsteps now ; the last
ray of light has flickered out from the eternal darkness of
her life.

In God's good time she too will come to her rest, and in
the land where blind eyes open she may look once more
upon the face of him she then loved — the man who went
forth homeless at the bidding of the law, and died in the
interests of philanthropy and industrial dwellings.

In that land there are many mansions. But they are not
reared for the rich and well-to-do at the expense of the
helpless poor. The wise and benevolent provisions of the
Artisans Dwellings Act have not yet penetrated so far.

Pledge XIII.
A FLAT IRON.

MRS. GRINHAM was in a dreadful way about her boy
Jemmy. Jemmy had been dispatched upon a private and
confidential errand an hour since, and he ought to have
been back in ten minutes.

Jemmy was such a good little boy, always doing his
errands so nicely and so quickly, that his mother began to
fear something must have happened to him. Furthermore,
there was this fact to heighten her anxiety — Jemmy would
have in his possession a small sum of money — a little
temporary accommodation on good security, which Mrs.
Grinham had found it necessary to negotiate for.

Mrs. Grinham this afternoon was the only figure in an
English interior hardly picturesque enough to tempt the
painter to reproduce it for Burlington House or Grosvenor
Gallery connoisseurs.

It was a dirty kitchen in a dirty house in a dirty street in
Lisson-grove. Mrs. Grinham was dirty too, for she had
been " tidying-up" — that is, she had raised a cloud of dust
with a bald-headed broom, and given the little table a dry
rub with the skirt of her dress, and had put some odd
pieces of crockery in the sink and turned the tap on
them.

This last operation had been rendered necessary by the
flight of time. It was nearly half-past five, and shortly
after that hour Mr. Grinham would, as was his wont, return

158 THREE BRASS BALLS.

to the domestic haven which he had quitted at the same
hour in the morning, and Mr. Grinham would require his tea.

Presently Mrs. Grinham produced two cups and half a
loaf and a small piece of butter from the cupboard, then
she unscrewed a small paper and looked anxiously at the
contents.

Yes ; there were two teaspoonfuls left.

Mrs. Grinham gave a sigh of relief. Her lord could have
his tea, although Jemmy had not returned with the anxiously-
expected proceeds of the hypothecation of his mother's
flat-iron.

Thanks to those two teaspoonfuls, Mr. Grinham's tea was
ready for him whenever he liked to come.

He came presently, dusty and dirty and tired from his
day's work, his hands in his pocket and his clay pipe in his
mouth.

Mrs. Grinham wiped her hands on her apron, and began
cutting bread-and-butter directly he appeared at the door-
way

Her husband flung his hat into a corner and himself into
a chair. Then he held out his hand, and Mrs. Grinham put
a slice of thick bread-and-butter into it. He gave a grunt
of satisfaction.

" Where's Jem? " he said presently, with his mouth full.

"I don't know," answered Mrs. Grinham; "I'm eettine
nervous about him. I expect he's gone after Punch and
Judy or some orgin-man."

Mr. Grinham gave a grunt of dissatisfaction this time.
In ten minutes he would have put away all the available
bread-and-butter, and then he would want a smoke, and he
hadn't a bit of tobacco left. He wanted Jemmy to go and
fetch him a screw. Life was all trouble to Mr. Grinham.

A FLAT IRON 15.9

Here he was tired with a day's work, and he might have to
go and fetch his own tobacco or go without a smoke for
a few minutes. Both alternatives were terrible to contem-
plate. He finished his bread-and-butter, drained his cup,
licked the spoon, and then looked wofully at his empty pipe,

" Dang that there Jem ! he's never here when he's
wanted," he growled. Then he pointed to his hat in the
corner, and requested it might be given to him.

Mrs. Grinham, like a dutiful wife, picked it up and put it
on his head. He rose from the chair with a grunt, and
slouched out of the house.

Mr. Grinham was a blighted genius. He had a genius
for doing nothing, and Fate had compelled him to work for
his living. His principles were tinged with Communism, and
he felt that he was oppressed and downtrodden by every-
body who had twopence more than he had. He was fond
of his wife and fond of his boy Jem in his lazy way. He
was fond of them when they waited on him, and under-
stood what he wanted with the least possible explanation.

He wasn't a clever workman, and he didn't get much
wages ; this, he felt, was another gross injustice.

" Oh, if I was only rich," sighed Jem Grinham, "wouldn't
I take it easy? " At present he was poor — so poor that he
and his wife had hard work to keep their heads above
water, and many were the shifts which the woman had
to make to keep her lazy husband from sometimes going
short of a meal.

Jemmy, the boy, and she were contented enough. They did
all they could to make " father" comfortable. They knew
he had been well brought up and ought to have been a
gentleman, and they felt how highly honoured they were in
having him for a husband and father.

160 THREE BRASS BALLS.

When Mr. Grinham had departed in search of his
tobacco, Jemmy's mother gave vent to her motherly anxiety.
In her husband's presence she had restrained it. It was
bad enough to be so pushed that the flat-iron had to go for
a few coppers to carry on with, and now here was this
worry about the boy.

She had good cause to worry, for Jemmy had been gone
over an hour and a half just two streets off.

Mrs. Grinham went and stood at the door and looked up
the street and down the street, and then she thought she
would run across to the pawnbroker's and see if Jem had
been there. He might have been run over, or lured away
for the fourpence and his poor clothes. A hundred stories
of the dangers of the London streets surged up into Mrs.
Grinham's mind and increased her anxiety.

She was still standing at the door when a gentleman
stopped in front of her. He was looking for the number
of the house, but as the door was open he couldn't
see it.

" I beg your pardon, ma'am, but can you tell me if a Mrs
Grinham lives here ? " he said presently.

The woman's blood left her cheeks, and her heart gave a
violent jump. Jemmy had been killed, and this gentleman
had come to tell her about it.

"Is it about my Jemmy, sir?" she gasped out. "I'm
Mrs. Grinham."

The gentleman raised his hat.

" I beg your pardon, madam, but can I speak a few words
with you indoors ? "

Mrs. Grinham, still violently agitated, led the way to the
kitchen, and dusted a chair for the gentleman.

" You are, madam, I believe, Sarah Grinham, wife of

A FLAT IRON. 161

James Grinham, daughter of the late John Shuster, chimney-
sweep, and sister of Charles Shuster ? "

"That's me," said Mrs. Grinham ; "but I ain't heard
anything o' my relations for years."

" Madam, you are doubtless aware that your brother
Charles had a considerable fortune."

"I knew as he made a lot o' money buying up deadhosses
in the Crimean war; but he never troubled us much."

" Madam, he is, I am sorry to inform you, dead. He has
died worth a large sum of money, and left it all to you
to atone for his neglect of you while he was alive."

"What!"

Mrs. Grinham shrieked the word out. She fancied she
was dreaming. A large sum of money ! Why, she'd
almost forgotten she had a brother, it was so long since she
had heard anything about him.

The gentleman, who was a solicitor, and had been some
time finding her out, gave her lengthy particulars of her
fortune and of her brother's affairs, but she hardly caught a
word he said, she was so bewildered.

Presently Mr. Grinham came slouching in with his screw
of tobacco.

" Oh, Jem," shrieked his wife, " my brother Charles is
dead, and he's left us a fortune ! "

Mr. Grinham's clay pipe slipped out of his mouth and
smashed itself on the floor. He sat down and took his hat off.
| "A fortune!"

He repeated it three times slowly. Then he looked round
the dirty back kitchen with a look of unutterable loathing.

" When can we have some of it to go on with ? " he
asked presently.

" My dear sir, if you will come to my office to-morrow

1 62 THREE BRASS BALLS.

—here is my card — I will arrange everything to your satis-
faction and immediate advantage."

The gentleman gave his card to Mr. Grinham, bowed,
and went out.

For two minutes neither husband nor wife spoke, then the
man gathered himself together and said, " Sarah, have you
got fourpence ? I must go and have a drink on the strength
of this." And then his wife told him that she hadn't a
penny in the place, and that reminded her that her son and
heir, her boy Jemmy, heir to this big fortune, had gone out
to pawn the flat-iron and hadn't come back again.

"I'm so uneasy about Jemmy," she said. "Where can
he be ? "

" A fortune ! " answered her husband, thinking aloud.

But the mother's heart, in spite of the sudden windfall,
was heavy. She had won a fortune and lost her child on
the selfsame night.

*****

The good ship Mayflower sailed from the East India
Docks for Australia with a crew of forty men and eighty
passengers.

That was according to the owner's books. But there was
a passenger of whom the owners knew nothing. He hadn't
booked his berth or engaged with the firm as a seaman, and
the ship was out at sea before he was discovered.

Then a little white-faced London boy suddenly appeared
on deck, to the amazement of everybody.

" Curse you, you young rascal ! what the devil are you
doing here ? " said the captain.

" Please, sir," whimpered the boy, who had visions of being
thrown overboard, " I wanted to go to sea and make my
fortune, and I hid myself."

A FLAT IRON- 163

" Where the deuce are you going to make your fortune?"

" Out in them furrin' countries, sir, as we read about.
Jack Smith made his that way, and I thought I might get a
lot of gold in Californy and take back and make my father
a gentleman, like he did his'n."

The passengers had gathered round to listen to the little
stowaway's story, and, encouraged by the attention he had
excited, he told them all.

He had read in "The Boy Sailor " of a golden land to
which the great ships sailed, and in the last week's number
Jack Smith, the hero, had gone out there and picked up<
enough gold to live happy ever after on, and he had thought
if he could get there he would do the same. So he had
hidden himself in the ship.

The boy was Master Jemmy Grinham, and he had four-
pence and a pawn-ticket in his pocket with which to start
in the new world.

No wonder Mrs. Grinham waited in vain for the return;
of the missing heir.

*****

Five years have passed away since the good ship May-
flower sailed for Australia.

Mr. and Mrs. Grinham were quite gentlepeople now, and
in their beautiful house in the suburbs received their
neighbours hospitably, and were reckoned people worth
cultivating. They gave good dinners and dances, and kept
open house, and were always safe when subscriptions were
wanted for local or general purposes.

They had grieved long and earnestly for their lost son.
The mystery surrounding his fate had never been pierced,
and at last they had made up their minds that an acci-
dent had happened to him, and that he would never be

L 2

1 64 THREE BRASS BALLS.

heard of again. The mother felt her loss because she
loved him dearly, and there was a void in her heart. The
father grieved because now that he was wealthy he could
afford the luxury of a son, and a son was something that a
rich man ought to have if only to leave his money to when
he died.

Jemmy was not mentioned in their new circle of ac-
quaintances. The past life of the Grinhams was a profound
secret. They came away from their old home without
leaving anyone the means of tracing them, and gave it out
to the Lisson-grovers that they were going to Australia. If
it had been known they had only been poor working people,
suburban society might have withstood even the temptation
of the dinners and the parties.

One day a tall lad, bronzed with sun and sea, knocked
at the door of the old house in Lisson-grove. He was a
fine, strapping lad, well dressed and hearty, and no one
would have recognised in him the white-faced, ragged little
boy who sailed from the East India Docks five years ago,

But Jemmy Grinham it was, and now he was back to give
.his father and mother a glad surprise. He had been lucky.
The captain had been very kind to him, and given him a
help with a friend in Australia, and the friend had taken a
fancy to him and found the lad useful. Jemmy had been
grateful, and when the opportunity came had repaid his
benefactor. A robbery was attempted at his employer's
place, and the boy's courage and intrepidity had saved
thousands of pounds' worth of property.

And now he was back again home with the little fortune
for his father and mother that he had dreamed about. He
had £300 which his master had given him for catching the
thieves and saving the property. He was to go to England,

A FLAT IRON. 165

find his poor parents, bring them out, and their fortune
should be made too. He had not written home while he
had been away. It had always been his scheme to surprise
his parents when the good luck came.

It was with a beating heart that he rapped at the door.
Would his mother come herself ? His eyes filled with tears
as he thought of the little cry of joy she would give.

A strange woman answered him, and his voice trembled,
as he said —

" Is Mrs. Grinham in ? "

" Nobody o' that name here."

" I beg your pardon," stammered the lad, " I've beem
away five years. Can you tell me where she's gone to ? "

" Bill ! " shouted the woman

Bill was up stairs evidently, for the voice came down in
reply —

"Hullo!— what is it?"

" D'ye know where the Grinhams be gone to as lived
here five year ago ? "

" Yes," answered Bill ; " they went to Australy."

Poor Jem turned quite white under his tan, and he
staggered back from the step.

He had come so many weary leagues to find them, and'
they were in Australia all the time.

He turned away to hide his tears, and, thanking the
woman in a husky voice, walked down the old familiar
street.

It was hard, after being buoyed with hope so long, to
have success dashed from him just as he thought he held it
in his grasp.

He walked away thinking of all that had happened since
Lhe afternoon he went to pawn his mother's flat-iron, and

1 66 THREE BRA SS DA LLS.

ran away with the money. He carried the ticket with him
still.

He pulled out his purse and looked at the worn duplicate.
It was the only memento he had of that eventful step in his
career.

He had intended to fling his notes down in his mother's
lap with the ticket and say, " Mother — that's what your flat-
iron fetched."

And now —

He put the ticket back sorrowfully, and went aimlessly
on his way through the London streets.

* * * * *

There was a grand evening party at Mr. Jones's, the.
stockbroker's, in Melina-terrace, Haverstock Hill.

Mr. Jones lived at one end of Melina-terrace, and the
Grinhams at the other, and as the families were friendly the
Grinhams were invited.

Mr. Jones was doing the thing in style, and an awning
from the hall door to the front garden gate having well
advertised the fact that a party was to be given, the usual
crowd had assembled outside to witness the arrivals.

A young man with a sunburnt face, strolling along, came
up to the crowd, and, having nothing better to do, joined
it and watched the fast-arriving guests.

Presently he saw a lady and gentleman come along the
terrace on foot, and pass into the house.

He gave such a sharp, sudden cry that the crowd turned
round to look at him.

Before he could recover his composure the gentleman
and lady had passed into the house, and the door was shut.

He had recognised the lady's face, and in that sudden
revelation every other incident of the scene was blotted

A FLAT IRON. 167

out. He saw no jewels, no grand house, no well-dressed
lady — only a well-known face.

Five years were rolled back suddenly, and all he thought
of was a poor hard-working woman, who had sent her son
to pawn a flat-iron.

He dashed through the crowd, ran up the steps, and
banged at the door.

As it opened he flew past the astonished servant, and
rushed into the brilliantly-lighted room.

He looked for one face only, and saw it. His mother was
sitting by the hostess, talking to her.

Jemmy Grinham ran across the room, and in a moment
had flung a packet in her lap.

" Mother," he shouted, beside himself with excitement,
" this is what they lent on your flat-iron ! " Then he held
up the pawn-ticket, and, almost hysterical with joy,
smothered her face with kisses.

At the first sound of his voice Mrs. Grinham had almost
swooned, but his hot kisses convinced her it was no ghost
from the dead, but her dear boy, safe and sound, returned
at last.

The guests gazed in astonishment at the scene. The
mother had risen and clasped her son in a passionate em-
brace, and the notes and the pawn-ticket fell on the floor.

Mr. Jones picked the latter up and read it.

It was a ticket for a flat-iron dated five years back, and
made out in the name of Sarah Grinham.

*****

The story of the rich Mrs. Grinham, her long-lost son,
and her flat-iron, went the round of Haverstock Hill society,
and was the staple subject of conversation for a month.

But neither of the parties most interested cared much

1 68 THREE BRASS BALLS.

about that. Mr. and Mrs. Grinham were too rich to be cut
and their parties too good to be refused, and the story was
" really so very romantic, you know."

When the excitement of the first meeting was over, and
Mr. and Mrs. Grinham and Jemmy were beneath their own
roof, there was a long tale to tell on both sides.

If his parents were astonished to see him, Jemmy was no
less amazed at the change of fortune which had overtaken them.

"And to think," he said, "that all the time I was sailing
across the sea to look for a fortune one had come to you
ready made, at the very time I lay a ragged little stowaway
in the Mayflower."

Jemmy is not going back to Australia. There is no
necessity now. In spite of that awkward revelation of his,
he is a great favourite in the suburb, for he is handsome,
and he will, of course, be rich.

Mr. Jones still invites the Grinhams to visit him, for there
is a grown-up Miss Jones, and Jemmy and she seem to suit
each other very well.

Sarah Grinham has a little box of treasures which she
keeps in her own little boudoir. There is a curl cut from
Jemmy's hair when he was a baby, her marriage certificate,
one or two little remnants of the old life of poverty, and a
photograph of herself and Mr. Grinham, taken for sixpence
on Hampstead Heath, when they were not dressed quite so
fashionably as they are now. She has lately added to that
little store another memento of the old life. It is something-
linked with a story of a lost son and the strange journey he
made in search of fortune. It is something which will
always remind her of the sad day he was lost and the happy
night she saw him again after five long years. It is the
pawnbroker's ticket for — a flat-iron.

Pledge XIV
A "SHAKESPEARE."

In an untidy corner of a pawnbroker's widow, where
mbrellas, meerschaum pipes, surgical instruments, cruet-
tands, books, and old china, lie in unpicturesque confusion
o tempt the buyer, there is also a beautifully-bound copy of
Shakespeare's works.

Adversity makes strange bedfellows, and it is adversity
/hich has brought William Shakespeare to lie here cheek
y jowl with a varied assortment of unredeemed pledges.

The shopman has been reaching something from the
window to show a customer, and in drawing it out his hand
as caught the handsome volume and flung it open at the
itle-page. There is an inscription written there which it
> now open for the passer-by to read: "To William
)urtnall. A prize for diligence and general good conduct,
une, 18 — ." Then follows the name of the country school
/here William Durtnall had been so diligent and so good.

It is a sad satire upon such a character that the prize
hould come to lie among the unredeemed pledges of a
awnbroker's stock. What brought it from the country to
he great city? How came the good and diligent William
o use it as security for an advance, and why was it never
edeemed ?

Listen to the story of William Durtnall's life.

*****

It is William Durtnall's last night at home.

170 THREE BRASS BALLS.

He is about to leave the quiet village of Ottermouth,
where his young life has been passed, and go up to London
to make his fortune.

William is just sixteen, a bright, rosy-cheeked, country
lad, the sole joy and comfort of his widowed and invalid
mother. Ever since Willie can remember they have lived
in the modest little cottage where he sits to-night toyino
with his simple supper — delighted to think that he is about
to embark in life, grieved to think that he must part from
her whom he loves and reverences, from whose side he has
never yet been absent many hours.

He knows that he shall miss her very much, and that
where he is going there will be no one to watch over him
and make his life pleasant as she has done ; he knows that
the parting will almost break her heart, and that in the
long, lonely evenings she will sit and weep as she looks
upon his empty chair.

But it is necessary that he should make a future for him-
self, and the chance has come. His mother stands aside,
and refuses to be a bar to her son's success ; he feels that
in securing a position he will be benefiting her, and so it
is finally arranged that he shall accept the situation offered
him, and go to London.

This splendid situation has not been lightly obtained.
Willie had been the favourite pupil at the local school. He
has been patted on the head by the rector, and held up as
a bright example by all the local patrons of learning.
Willie has fully deserved their favour. He has been the
best boy at the school, has shown himself wonderfully quick
at figures, and has gained the annual prize for diligence and
<rood conduct.

This prize was a beautifully-bound copy of Shakespeare's

A "SHAKESPEARE." 171

works, and when Willie, beaming with pleasure, brought it
home to his mother, the foolish woman let two big tears of
pride and joy fall right upon the fly-leaf where her son's
name was honourably mentioned in the head master's very
best and most flourishing handwriting.

That was the termination of Willie's scholastic career.
He went to business then, for his mother was very poor,
having only a trifling allowance made to her for her life by
her dead husband's employer, a local solicitor.

Mr. Durtnall had been a solicitor's clerk, not very quick,
but very honest and faithful. When he died, at the age of
forty-five, his salary was £2 a week. He left his wife and
child penniless, but in consideration of his long and faithful
services his employer made an allowance to his widow of
£1 a week as long as she lived.

It is true that at that time she wasn't expected to live a
fortnight, but of course that had nothing to do with Lawyer
Jones's munificence finding its way into the local paper.

Widow Durtnall got well unexpectedly, and Lawyer Jones
perhaps regretted he had been in such a hurry to let his
benevolence be publicly announced. Still, there it was, and
he couldn't go back, so Mrs. Durtnall had his pound a week
and lived on it.

When Willie left school he got a place at the local draper's
as a sort of errand boy and junior shopman combined. But
the trade wasn't heavy, and the year being a bad one,
Willie, after giving every satisfaction for six months, got a
week's notice.

Then it was that the brilliant opening presented itself.
An influential resident, a retired draper from Exeter, who
had taken great interest in Willie's scholastic career, offered
to get him into the great London house of Solomon Smith

1 7 2 THREE BRA SS BA LLS.

and Co. Solomon Smith and Co. were world-famed
wholesale drapers. Even Willie and his mother had heard
of them.

" Of course, you'll have to work hard at first there, my
boy," said his patron, " and work your way up. But it's a
splendid house. Why, there are men in the firm now
getting their thousand a year who went in as lads at next to
nothing."

The more Willie heard about the great house of Solomon
Smith the more it seemed to him the stepping-stone to
fortune. Drapery house' — nonsense ! It was a cave of
jewels to which with a magic "open sesame" he would
obtain admission like a second Aladdin, and secure a fortune
by just picking it up.

And fancy, when he was having a thousand a year, what
a beautiful home he would make for his mother ! She should
always sit in the drawing-room with cherry ribbons to her
caps, and be a real lady. And perhaps the partners would
look round and spend the evening with them. He was sure
Mr. Smith would like his mother, and if he once tasted her
rhubarb jam — ah !

Talking over his brilliant prospects it suddenly occurred
to Willie that perhaps a preliminary pot of the rhubarb jam
might be diplomatically useful. Mrs. Durtnall had the same
idea as her son, and so this evening, as he sits at supper for
the last time at home, there lies up stairs in his box a pot of
the famous home-made jam in dangerous proximity to the
prize " Shakespeare."

Ere mother and son sought their beds that night they
knelt together in the little room, and with choked voices
prayed together to the Throne of Grace — the mother that
her son's future might be peaceful and prosperous, the

A "SHAKESPEARE." i 73

son that God would console the widow shorn of her only
joy.

And the next morning they parted at Exeter Station, he
a rosy-cheeked, merry country lad, beaming with rude health
and elated with hope ; she a frail woman, lonely and broken-
hearted, and penetrated already by the fatal shaft of that
disease which was soon to free Lawyer Jones from the
penalty of his rash promise.

* * * * *

Messrs. Solomon Smith and Co. are world-famed as
wholesale drapers. Their gigantic establishment occupies
a whole block of buildings in a great City thoroughfare, and
their employes number many hundreds. Their transactions
are colossal, and their wealth is enormous. They bear a
character which is irreproachable, and their benevolence is
universally admitted.

The senior partner is greatly revered for the active part
he takes in all measures for the benefit of the heathen.

Like all wholesale drapery houses, the system of business
is of the strictest and most methodical kind. The huge
army of employes is officered by martinets, and the heads of
the firm invariably leave the details of such a gigantic con-
cern to be arranged upon the most approved business
principles.

The partners in such a concern rarely interfere person-
ally with the management of departments. It is to the
counting-house that they confine their attentions, and many
of them are ignorant of the gross cruelty which the working
of the wholesale drapery system entails.

A year has passed since Willie Durtnall came to take
his place as a servant of the great firm.

Let us see how he is getting on. We search for him in

j 74 THREE BRASS BALLS.

vain through room after room. We must go down very low
to find him.

We have come to a huge cavernous building which might
appropriately be described as a cellar.

It is mid-day, and the sun is shining brightly outside,
but forty gas-jets are flaring, for here no light can pene-
trate.

We are confused at first by the glare of the light and the
babel of tongues rattling off item after item. Seated at rows
of desks are some thirty or forty youths, ranging in age
from fourteen to eighteen.

Willie Durtnall we remember a rosy-cheeked, stalwart
lad. Surely he cannot be here. These young fellows are
all pale and bent, and their cheeks are thin and hollow.
There is no Willie Durtnall, no healthy, happy, country lad
here.

Stay, that tall, white-faced boy shading his eyes with his
hands bears some resemblance to him. He looks up.

It is he — but, O, what a change !

The lad is a wreck — his roses have gone, and his face is
deadly pale. As he looks up we see that he winks and
blinks like an owl, and presently he bursts out into a dis-
tressing cough that tells tales about his lungs.

Here comes a customer who has business in this room.
He is Willie's old master from Ottermouth. He has asked
for the lad, and Willie has been pointed out to him.

The draper stares in astonishment.

" You look ill, lad," he says kindly.

" I have been," answers the boy feebly, "but I'm getting
better."

" What's been the matter ? "

"Well, I got a bad cold, and I seemed to go wron^ all

A "SHAKESPEARE."

/:>

r>f a sudden. I expect London didn't agree with me at
first. I'm used to the fresh air, and this place — "

The draper looks round and shrugs his shoulders.

"Why, it's like the Black Hole in Calcutta," he says.

" I don't know what that was like," answers the lad,
under his breath, as though he were afraid to be heard,
" but this place settles no end of fellows."

" You aren't in it long, I suppose ? "

"We are often in it from eight in the morning till eleven
o'clock at night, with only half an hour for dinner and a
quarter of an hour for tea."

" Ah, but that isn't often ? "

" It's six weeks at a stretch."

" That's very dreadful."

" But that's not the worst, sir. Look at these little lads
at the next desk. They're apprentices, and just fresh from
school. They worked at the desk till two o'clock this
morning with the rest of us, and at six o'clock the watch-
man came round and pulled us out of bed to begin again,
for this is our busy season.

Here the conversation is interrupted, and the lad has to
go on with his work, figuring with lightning rapidity, and
tilling in invoice after invoice so fast that they seemed to
fly from under his hand as if thrown out by machinery.

They work at high pressure in these great drapery
houses, and they insist upon perfection. One mistake made
by a lad of sixteen, working in a sea of figures fourteen and
fifteen and sometimes twenty hours a day, is lightly
punished, but the second means loss of promotion and often
dismissal at a moment's notice.

In the worst days of American slavery never was there
such nigger-driving as that practised systematically by the

£76 THREE BRASS BALLS

wholesale drapery trade, and most cruelly practised towards
those least able to bear its rigours — growing and delicate

lads.

H* *T* 5jC Sp !)C

It is the day before the Christmas holidays, and the great
firm of Solomon Smith and Co. is going to close for three
days.

Just before two o'clock, when the shutters are to go up,
Willie Durtnall falls from his seat in a dead faint.

He has been trembling and shivering all the morning;
his eyes, weakened by the daily gas, are protected by
spectacles, and to-day the figures have swum before him.
He has been queer and out of sorts all the week.

The lad who worked next him died a fortnight since in
the house. He had been ill for a month, and the doctor
said it was galloping consumption. He got delirious at last,
and raved of his home and his mother ; and Willie, who
had gone to see him after business hours up stairs in the
great dormitory, had been shocked and unnerved.

He was in a very weak state himself, and he feared that

his sight was going, and then . Well, it meant ruin.

It meant that he would be a helpless burden on his poor
mother all his life.

His last letter from her told him that she was ill, and
pining to see her dear boy. How was he getting on ? Was
he a favourite with the partners ?

Poor mother! The boy had hesitated to dispel her
illusion as his own had been dispelled.

But her letter added a fresh terror to those which were
already weighing him down. His health he knew was
breaking down.

He was going home at Christmas. He had saved his

'SHA KESPEA RE. " i 71

money for months to pay the fare, but the pleasure of the
visit was marred by the fear he had that his mother would
see how ill he was.

He was, indeed, only a wreck. Everyone in his depart-
ment saw that he was going the way so many a bright
young lad had gone. All constitutions will not stand the
long hours of fierce brain work in a vile atmosphere. The
town lads get on pretty well. It is the country boys,
accustomed to fresh air and exercise and regular meals, who
break most rapidly, and leave or die.

Willie would not leave. He was not fit to take another
situation even could he have got one. But when he fainted
the manager was in the room. He had long noticed the
lad's condition, and he really felt sorry for him. It was
his duty, if he saw a lad was likely to fall ill and be unable
to work, to dismiss him at once.

Besides, he felt sure that Willie was not only going to be
ill, but that his eyesight was failing.

When the lad had recovered he told him to go to the
counting-house.

There he received a week's salary, with an intimation
that his services would not be required any more. This
was exceptional generosity. The firm claims the right to
dismiss at a minute's notice without any salary at all.

There is nothing cruel or inhuman in this procedure — it is
merely the wholesale drapery system. Flesh and blood is
only a marketable commodity — if you allow nonsensical
ideas about humanity, and all that sort of thing, to get into
the drapery system, you would upset it, and why upset a
system which works so admirably — for the employers.

Willie's dismissal was a terrible blow. Packing his little
box, putting his prize for diligence and good conduct care-

M

.78 THREE BRASS BALLS.

fully in with his clothes, he bade his comrades a sorrowful
good-bye and reeled out of the place.

There was one of the young men who lived out of doors
who had taken a fancy to Willie and done him many little
kindnesses. He saw the lad's condition, and knew that he
was totally unfit to travel. He insisted upon his coming
home and spending Christmas with him. " You'll have
a longer holiday than you thought, my boy," he said
kindly.

" You'll be better for a few days' rest, and then you can
go down home.

Willie Durtnall was forced to yield to his friend's sugges-
tion. He felt so ill and weak that he could hardly stand.
* * * * H«

For four weeks the cast-off clerk of Solomon Smith and
Co. lay between life and death at the house of the friend who
had taken him in.

They wrote his mother a few days after Christmas that
her son was lying at death's door, delirious and calling for
her, and suggested that she should come.

The letter was opened and answered by Lawyer Jones,
who replied that Mrs. Durtnall could not come to London,
she having set out on a very much longer journey rather
suddenly on the previous day.

Mrs. Durtnall was dead.

Lawyer Jones took possession of her furniture and her
few effects, and they were sold to defray the expenses of
her funeral and to settle some small bills unpaid at the time
of her death.

They broke the news gently to the poor lad when with
returning consciousness he asked for news of his mother
and when Willie Durtnall lifted his weak limbs from the bed

A "SHAKESPEARE." 170

of sickness he was shattered in health, penniless, friendless,
and alone.

His little stock of money had been exhausted for medical
attendance, for his friend had a large heart but a small
purse, and in justice to his own family he could not pay the
expenses of a comparative stranger.

When Willie could walk he insisted upon being a burden
to his kind friend no longer. He took his small box, and
hired a top attic in a little side street until such time as he
could get into collar again.

With the five shillings his friend insisted upon making
him keep he managed for a few days. He wandered from
office to office seeking work, but everywhere his appear-
ance was against him. He was a youth risen from the
grave, and he looked it.

When his last shilling was gone he pawned his clothes,
and when he had only the clothes he stood upright in he
pawned his little treasures. Then it was that the " good
and diligent boy," with an aching heart, took the reward of
his diligence under his arm and pawned it for a meal and a
lodging.

It was with a feeling of shame and humiliation that he
put it down upon the counter, and he cast his eyes on the
ground as the pawnbroker's assistant opened it at the fly-
leaf.

He remembered how two years ago he had stood a bright,
rosy-cheeked boy, glowing with health, to receive this book
from the hands of his master amid the plaudits of his com-
panions.

He remembered how he had rushed home with it to his
mother, and how she had prophesied it was his first step

upon the path to fame and fortune.

M 2

180 THREE BRASS BALLS.

He remembered, too, how carefully it had been put in his
box when he came up to the great city to take his place in
the warehouse of Messrs. Solomon Smith and Co., and how
he had made sure that, once in the employ of that famous
firm, he had only to be good and diligent and he would
win a far more substantial prize than a volume of "Shake-
speare."

He took what the shopman offered him on his prize, and,
hungry as he was, he hardly liked to spend it. It seemed
to him that the few shillings were the price of his past and
of his future — that he had parted with the last tie that bound
him to hope.

Still he kept plodding the weary round of the City offices
and living as best he could, till at last he got too shabby to
apply for a clerk's berth.

When he was out at heel and ragged he asked for a
porter's place, and they looked at his white face and thin,
bent body, and laughed.

After a time he sank lower and lower, and tramped the
streets all night unable to afford a lodging. He picked up
what he could, and got odd jobs in the streets.

One day, inspired with a sudden fury at the cruelty of his
fate, he felt a hideous temptation to rebel against society in
revenge— to become a thief if he saw the chance.

A lady passed him one day when hunger was gnawing his
vitals and the cold was cutting him through.

Her purse was in one of those back pockets specially
designed to instil into the uncultured mind the maxim that
God helps those who help themselves.

He could have seized it unseen. There it lay, so close to
his hand, as she stopped to look into a shop window, that
his fingers had but to close and it was his.

A "SHAKESPEARE." 181

With a violent effort he tore himself away, and rushed
along the street out of the way of the terrible temptation.
And that night he reaped the reward of his honesty by
failing to earn a night's shelter, and having to take to the
casual ward at last.

After that no one who knew him ever saw him again.

What became of him ? Ah, Heaven knows.

What does become of the poor outcasts who are dragged
down by cruel circumstances from respectability to misery
and ruin?

They are drawn into some mysterious vortex, and whirled
away to be seen no more.

Whether he died or lived, whether at last he found a
haven or drifted into the black ocean of crime, I cannot say.
He never redeemed his " Shakespeare," for it lies even now
as I write in the pawnbroker's window, its open page telling
all who pass by that once the poor wretch who pawned it
was "good and diligent."

But it is a dumb witness to no more. It does not tell the
curious gazer that this lad reaped the reward of his diligence
by getting promoted to the famous house of Solomon Smith
and Co., wholesale drapers, and there his health was ruined
and his whole life marred, which result being brought about,
he was flung away as you fling away an orange from which
you have squeezed the juice.

*****

I have told here the simple story of a young lad's life.
The incidents happen every day. There are twenty
wholesale houses where the system here described prevails.
The heads of the firm are in many instances, I believe,
ignorant of the terrible amount of overwork and overstrain
to which their younger employes are subjected. Many of

i82 THREE BRASS BALLS.

these " slave-owners " are most charitable men, and Solomon
Smith himself is chairman of the Society for Promoting
Early Closing among the Hottentots. We have an Act
which protects the factory workers, and we have vigorously
attacked the petty masters of " sweating shops." But there
flourish in our midst colossal concerns, owned by merchant
princes, which employ boy labour under the most cruel
circumstances.

In some of these houses the lads have barely time to
swallow their meals, they sleep twenty in a small room, and
have often to work in an underground cellar from half-past
eight in the morning till past eleven at night, sometimes
from six in the morning till two the next morning, for days
in succession. And during the "busy times" not one penny
extra is allowed in the shape of salary to these white
niggers.

If the story of poor Willie DurtnalPs famous prize shall
arouse the attention of one earnest philanthropist to this
crying evil I shall not have written it in vain. I plead on
behalf of thousands of young lads whose lives are being
ruined by this cruel system. In these days of widespread
humanity and benevolent legislation the law must no longer
hesitate to bring under its control the great white slave
shops of the City.

Pledge XV
A CORAL AND BELLS.

" I SAY, that young 'un's clever."
" Ain't she ? Don't you know who she is ? "
" No. She's down on the bills as ' Little Daisy.' "
"Yes ; but she's Daisy Vavasour's little girl."
"Goon!"

" Honour ! I saw Gerty Holmes bring her to rehearsal."
"Well, I am glad. If she turns out right it'll be a fine
thing for Gerty. She deserves it, too, poor girl, I'm blest
if she doesn't."

The above conversation took place at the wings of the
Royal Frivolity Theatre one bleak March afternoon during
the rehearsal of the new burlesque which was to set the
Thames on fire. The speakers were two young ladies of
the chorus, but they wore elegant sealskin mantles, and
were attired in the height of fashion.

I need go into no details if I explain that the new bur-
lesque at the Frivolity was one of those pieces specially
arranged as a vehicle for the lavish display of female charms?
and that, talent being a minor consideration in certain roles,
the daughters of Bohemia, who were on the best of terms
with the sons of Belgravia, found on the boards amusement
for the passing hour, and that professional status which
enables a young lady in trouble with her landlady or her
coachman to describe herself before a legal tribunal as " an
actress."

1 84 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The two young ladies were conversing about a little girl
of five, who was cast for a part in this burlesque.

She was a sweet little thing, with large, saucy blue eyes,
a laughing mouth, and a quaint delivery that made every
word she uttered of value.

When she spoke her first lines clearly and distinctly, and
brought her little foot down with a stamp, in obedience to
the author's direction, there was quite a murmur among the
company, and people began to ask who she was.

And when the whisper ran round that this infant phe-
nomenon was Daisy Vavasour's little girl, and that Gerty
Holmes had taught her to act and brought her to the
theatre, there was quite a rush to look at the child. She
was patted on the head by the gentlemen, kissed by the
ladies, complimented by the stage manager, and blessed by
everybody but the author, who foresaw another request to
alter his burlesque for the twenty-fifth time in order on this
occasion to strengthen the part of Little Daisy.

That the reader may fully understand the intense in-
terest excited by this baby actress, we must go back three
years.

*****

Daisy Vavasour and Gerty Holmes were two of the
merriest, flightiest girls of the Royal Frivolity company.

Daisy was five-and-twenty and Gerty was two years her
junior, and they were both idolised by the Crutch and
Toothpick Brigade, for, in the expressive language of the
fraternity, both the girls were " good for a lark." No
Richmond dinner, no supper party, in a certain set, was
complete without Gerty and Daisy.

They were only "show girls" — that is, they came on
with the bevy of fair damsels, and their salaries were some-

A CORAL AND BELLS. 185

where about two guineas a week, but outside the theatre
their position was aristocratic. Daisy had charming apart-
ments at Pimlico, and Gerty's rooms in Brunswick-cottages,
St. John's Wood, were furnished in the most elegant and
recherche style.

To save themselves the trouble of worrying their pretty
little heads with financial matters, they allowed a gentle-
man to be their purse-bearer, and to settle their worldly
affairs for them.

Occasionally there was a change of ministry, and the
Financial Secretary to the Home Department would resign,
to be succeeded by another.

Three years ago, when Gerty and Daisy were in the
height of their prosperity, and the world of fashion was at
their feet, Daisy's Chancellor of the Exchequer was a
young baronet of sporting proclivities, and Gerty was at
the moment without one at all, having been attacked by one
of those affaires de casur which sometimes will happen in
the best-regulated female breast. Gerty had fallen over
head and ears in love with the gentleman who played the
lovers at the Frivolity. She was going to give up Rich-
mond dinners and West-end suppers, and wear black, and
go to church, and by-and-by, perhaps, Augustus would
marry her, and then they would settle down in a cottage,
have babies, buy a perambulator, and propitiate Mrs.
Grundy in every possible way.

This was Gerty's dream, but when she told it to Daisy in
the crowded dressing-room Daisy shrieked with laughter,
and, kicking up her heels, indulged in a wild war dance,
much to the disgust of the other ladies, who were "joggled,"
and dabbed the rouge on the ends of their noses instead of
on to their cheeks.

i86 THREE BRASS BALLS.

But afterwards, as they went up stairs on to the stage
dressed, or rather undressed, for their parts, Daisy said
quietly —

" Gerty, do you think you should like children r "

" Oh yes," said Gerty ; " I know I should."

"Come over to my place to-morrow; you've never been.
Come and see mv little one. I've had it home."

Gerty was delighted, and promised that she would. She
had often heard of Daisy Vavasour's two-year-old little girl
who was out at nurse, but had never seen it.

The next day Gerty went over to her friend at Pimlico,
and she enjoyed herself more than she had for many a long
day

The two girls forgot the footlights, the bold life of bare
limbs and painted faces, and all the heartless frivolity of the
fast circle they moved in.

They were two happy girls, with a baby between them.
They sat all day in Daisy's pretty drawing-room, and talked
over baby's future, and then they had a game of romps with
her, and then they went out to the shop and bought things
for baby, and came back again to a nice quiet tea-dinner,
and baby was put upon a high chair and nearly choked
between them.

Before they went to the theatre Daisy showed her visitor
a beautiful coral and silver bells, which she whispered mys-
teriously was the gift of " baby's father."

Gerty wasn't inquisitive, and didn't ask too much, but
Daisy told her that " he " wasn't friends with her now, and
that she hadn't seen him for a longtime. We all have our
family secrets, and Daisy Vavasour had hers.

The friendship between the girls ripened over baby.
Baby was a link between them, and many and many a day

A CORAL AND BELLS. 187

would Gerty Holmes go over to Daisy's house to have a
quiet hour with her and the little one.

I think they were both better for the domestic in-
terest imported into their Bohemian lives ; and though
they laughed as loudly still, and were as pert and bold as
ever, the womanly instinct aroused had not been without its
good effect.

One day Daisy didn't come to the theatre, sending a note
to say she was ill. The next day Gerty went round and
found her in bed. The doctor was there when she called,
and presently he explained to her why she had better not
see the patient.

The explanation was clear. Daisy Vavasour's symptoms
were those of small-pox.

Gerty would not listen to the doctor. Somebody would
have to nurse her friend ; it shouldn't be a stranger to her
poor girl.

The doctor told Gerty if she insisted she would have to
isolate herself — she certainly couldn't go in and out of the
house

Gerty, in her hearty, impulsive way, decided at once.
She sent word to the theatre that she couldn't come any
more, and then she sat down to nurse her friend.

The child was to be kept down stairs out of the way
by the landlady, and visitors were to be forbidden the

house.

Over Gerty's moral character angels and the respectable
classes would weep ; as to reputation she hadn't a rag,
except the reputation of being as fast a little lady as the
Frivolity could boast ; but she sat down by the bedside of
her friend to undertake a task and run a risk from which
the loftiest virtue might well have shrunk with horror.

1 88 THREE BRASS BALLS.

For a fortnight she never left her friend. There were
gay parties at Richmond and glorious supper parties in
town ; there was everything to entice the butterfly whose
life is made up of sunshine and gay flowers, but none of
these tempted Gerty. She nursed her sick friend with
untiring devotion, giving up all for the troubles and cares
of a lonely sick room.

The case was a bad one. Towards the end Daisy grew
delirious, and raved of the old days. She talked of her
home in the country, where her old father lived still — an
honest yokel, who had cursed the name of London, that had
robbed him of his pretty child.

The old days of innocence came back, mixed with the
unholy revels of the girl's later life. Now she babbled of
hay-fields and sweet flowers, and now of the wild life behind
the lights.

She sang snatches from the songs in the burlesques ; and
the names of the men who had paid court to her came now
and then to her fevered lips.

And amid it all, mixed up with every phase of her life,
as it were, was the little child — her little Daisy.

Daisy was with her in the green fields ; Daisy was with
her as she tried on the amazonian armour in the " Kingdom
of Delight" ; Daisy was on her knee as the Baronet clasped
a diamond necklace round her throat.

Just before the end came consciousness returned, and
Daisy Vavasour, of the Frivolity Theatre, thin and hollow-
cheeked, and dying, clasped the hand of the little chorus
girl who had been her friend when all others flew from her,
and bade God bless her for all she had done.

Her last request to Gerty was about the child.

" Promise me, Gerty, if I die, you will be a mother to my

A CORAL AND BELLS. 189

poor little one. Oh, Gerty, if I had my time over again I
would be so different."

Gerty promised to take little Daisy, and that while she
lived she should never come to any harm. Then, her voice
choked with sobs, and the tears raining down on the still
white face of the dying woman, she bent over her and
kissed her.

And that kiss was the last thing on earth that Daisy
ever knew That night the curtain rang down upon her
life's short burlesque, the paint and the powder were
washed from her face, the gay trappings of this mimic
scene were stripped from her limbs, and she went home.

Gerty Holmes paid a terrible price for that kiss. She
sickened, and was taken with the disease herself, and came
out again into the world with a face seamed almost beyond
recognition, and a baby to keep — her dear friend's little
Daisy.

Poor Gerty was heavily handicapped. They didn't want
her any more for the beauty show at the Frivolity. No
amount of powder would cover those awful marks, and
presents were hardly likely to rain upon her now from the
Crutch and Toothpick Brigade.

Augustus, it is needless to say, took care at once to
convince her that all hopes in that quarter were at an end.
" Poor little devil ! " he said to the gentleman who dressed
in the same room with him, " she was spoony on me once;
but, dem it all, you know, it won't do, will it?"

His friend thought not, especially now no young gentleman
who played the lovers was eminent in his profession unless
he had at least three ladies of title leaving bouquets at the
stage door for him nightly.

So Gerty dropped quite out of her old set, gave up her

ic/j THREE BRASS BALLS.

handsome rooms and the old life, and settled down with the
remains of her prosperity to hide her poor scarred face, work
her little fingers to the bone, and be a mother to her dead
friend's little child.

It was a hard struggle, for Gerty had lived a life of
sunshine too long to be ready for the storm.

She tried lots of things, and failed in all. She was beaten
everywhere by women who had been brought up to be
useful.

It was to make up the rent after a very bad time that
Daisy's coral and bells went over to the poor man's friend.

Gerty took it over herself, and it was lucky she did. It
was the pawnbroker himself who lent her the sovereign she
asked, and he questioned her.

Where did she get it ? Was it hers ? How long had she
had it ?

Gerty wondered at his curiosity, but the pawnbroker
explained. It was of him that it had been bought some
years ago, and the gentleman who bought it was very well
known to him.

" It was Sir ," said the pawnbroker, " and I noticed

the circumstance because it was a theatrical young lady who
was with him, I was told, and I wondered what a young
swell and a ballet girl wanted with a coral and bells."

To the mind unacquainted with the nice distinctions of
theatrical rank, all young ladies on the stage who are not
actresses are ballet girls.

Gerty knew in a minute who the young lady referred to
was, and as she left the shop with the money she felt that
she had discovered the secret which Daisy had never told
her.

That night, nerved by the prospect of approaching want —

A CORAL AND BELLS. iqi

want which she dreaded not for herself, but for the little one
who was all in the world to her now — Gerty sat down and
scrawled a note in her best hand to the Baronet.

It was an awkward, illiterate note, but inoffensively
worded, and it told its story.

It was three days before she could find out the address.
When she got it, she posted her letter, and waited.

She waited a week, and a very anxious week it was.

The little work Gerty had been able to get was done, and
the money spent, and she could get no more.

One evening when she was wondering what she could sell
next, she sat with Daisy in her arms in the little top room
where they lived.

On the wall was a piece of cracked looking-glass, and as
Gerty rocked the little one to sleep on her knee her eyes
were fixed intently on the face the glass reflected.

It was in the twilight, and all was quiet and still. Gerty's
thoughts wandered far away She remembered the old
days when her face was her fortune, when the curled
darlings of Belgravia were at her feet, when the best of
everything was at her command, and Fortunatus flung his
purse into her lap.

All the evil of those old days rose up before her now —
all the waste of her bright youth and the beauty God had
given her. But for the child she would be glad if it was
all over, now that there was no temptation to go the devil's
pace, and use life up so fiercely

She looked at her face, and wondered how she should
have fa.ed had God spared her beauty — whether for the
child's sake she would have lived a better life.

Lost in her reverie, she did not hear a knock at the door.

The person knocking receiving no answer opened the

.92 THREE BRASS BALLS.

door and entered, and Gerty turned round to find herself in
the presence of a tall, handsome gentleman of about five-
and-thirty

" I beg your pardon," said the stranger, stroking his
moustache, and looking rather sheepishly at the child in
Gerty's arms; "but are you Miss Holmes?"

" Yes," said Gerty, astonished.

" Haw ! You — ahaw — wrote me a letter ? "

Gerty knew who her visitor was now.

"I thought I'd come myself," said the Baronet, "it's such
adoosid rum affair. Poor Daisy; she wasn't a bad sort!"

The Baronet flicked his boots with his cane, and waited
for Gerty to say something. He felt ill at ease. The little
one disconcerted him dreadfully.

Gerty told her story shortly and simply — how her dead
friend had left the child in her charge, and how she had
found out that once the Baronet had been good to her — and
to the child.

Gerty was too shrewd a little woman of the world to
speak more plainly. She put the whole case as a question
of friendship and generosity.

The Baronet heard her story, twirled his moustache, said
" By Jove ! " and looked everywhere but at the little one.

Perhaps he was afraid he might grow fond of it. Perhaps
he had a wild idea that it might wake up and run at him,
calling out " Daddy," and then, by Jove ! you know, it would
have been doosid unpleasant.

He had liked Daisy very well when he was Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and he had been good to the child. When
the inevitable coldness and quarrel came and another
Chancellor reigned in his stead, he had given Daisy a cheque
for three figures to buy the baby something, and had sought

A CORAL AND BELLS. 193

fresh fields and pastures new for the sowing of his wild
oats.

But now he heard Daisy was dead and the little one was
being kept by a brave girl who was starving herself for its
sake, he felt touched.

"Poor little devil!" he said to himself; "dash me, if I
don't behave handsomely to it ! " Then turning to Gerty,
he blurted out —

" I'm glad you sent for me, Miss Holmes, though it's a
doosid rum affair. I liked Daisy Vavasour, for she was a
real good sort, and always ran straight. Look here, now.
I'm doosid hard up, for I've been hit over the Guineas, but
here's a pony for the young 'un, and directly I get a bit
straight I'll send you some more. It shall never want a
friend while I've a shot in the locker."

Gerty took the notes, and felt that she had at last found
a protector for poor Daisy's little one, and that, though she
mio-ht have to struggle still, the child would never want.

The Baronet went down stairs and out of the door, and
beamed at himself all the way up the dirty little street. He
had led the idle, thoughtless life of his class, and now he felt
just as if he had been to church, and come out quite a pattern
to the saints.

He kept his word for six months, and when he backed a
horse he always put on " an extra fiver for the young 'un."

He sent the money in his easy-going, slapdash way,
without the slightest inquiry into Gerty Holmes's character ;
but she made a good use of it, and when the Baronet broke
his neck riding his own horse at an Irish stetplechase a few
months later Gerty had a nice little sum put by for Daisy's

baby a sum which she refused to benefit by in any way

herself.

194 THREE BRASS BALLS.

It was Gerty who discovered the little one's aptitude for
mimicry, and taught her to act at first for amusement, but
afterwards, when the undoubted talent was so plainly
shown, as a business speculation.

No wonder at the Royal Frivolity, the scene of Daisy
Vavasour's short life can-can, the performance of Gerty
Holmes's protegee excited the attention and sympathy of
the company.

It was only lately that the true story of the little chorus
girl's heroic self-sacrifice had become known, and when she
came to fetch little Daisy after rehearsal, and was recognised
by her poor seamed face, many were the hands stretched out
to grasp hers, and to tell her that now the little one would
repay her for all her love and self-denial.

The coral and bells was long ago redeemed, and Gerty
keeps it carefully. She will give it to Daisy some day when
the child is old enough to understand its story and to know
that it is a memento of her strange parentage — of the
sporting baronet who broke his neck and of pretty Daisy
Vavasour of the Royal Frivolity Theatre.

Pledge XVI.
A MUSICAL BOX.

FOR three days in succession the same advertisement
appeared in a halfpenny evening paper : —

A "WIDOW lady in difficulties wishes to dispose of the duplicates of
several articles of jewellery and a musical box. Apply to E. E. D.

Young Mr. Simpkins, of the firm of Simpkins and Co.,
solicitors, Lincoln's Inn, read the announcement each
evening, and on the third one of those mysterious impulses
which move us at times, and for which we are quite unable
to account, moved him to write to R. E. D. for particulars.

The particulars came by return of post. The jewellery
consisted of an emerald ring, a gold locket, and a gold watch,
and the musical box was a valuable one, and played twelve
tunes. If Mr. Simpkins wished for an interview, R. E. D.
would be at home that day from five till seven, and would
be happy to see him.

" I believe these advertisements are swindles," said
Charley Simpkins to himself; "but I'll just follow this
affair out and see."

That afternoon, when he had finished work at the office,
he took a hansom and went to the address given.

He found R. E. D. a melancholy-looking widow of five-
and-thirty, a lady in her manners, evidently perfectly honest,
very poor, and one who had had a great deal of trouble.

The upshot of the interview was that the young solicitor
bought the duplicates of the property which had been in

N 2

1 96 THREE BRASS BALLS.

pawn for very nearly a twelvemonth for a small sum, and left
perfectly satisfied that he had been a party to a thoroughly
legitimate transaction.

The widow lady, Mrs. Dashwood, explained to him that
her husband, lately dead, had left her in very poor circum-
stances ; that after his death she had found these tickets in a
drawer; and that not having the means of redeeming them,
she had advertised them for sale. She had fancied she
might get a larger sum for them than Mr. Simpkins had
offered, but not being a woman of business she had for-
gotten that of course the twelvemonth's interest on them
considerably reduced their value.

The next day Mr. Simpkins redeemed his property. He
found the jewellery to be fairly good, of the ordinary
pattern, and not a particularly great bargain, but the
musical box was a capital one, and he was delighted with it.

Of course, he wound it up and tried it at once directly he
got it home.

It played "Home, sweet Home" first, then "Annie
Laurie," and then Mr. Simpkins's smile of satisfaction faded
from his face, and an indescribable look ol doubtand astonish-
ment took its place.

Then the musical box played " The Last Rose of
Summer," and the look deepened into one of uneasiness.

Before the tune was finished, young Mr. Simpkins
exclaimed aloud, " The next tune will be, ' I'm leaving thee
in sorrow, Annie.' "

"The Last Rose" was finished, and Mr Simpkins, with
an air of earnest attention, bent eagerly over the box. He
could hear his own heart beat as the preliminary notes of
the next tune were gurgled out.

It was " I'm leaving thee in sorrow, Annie," sure enough !

A MUSICAL BOX. 197

And the next will be, "Pretty Jemima, don't say no,"
shouted young Mr. Simpkins, rushing to the box and
eagerly scanning the lid for the list of tunes printed in-
side it.

Mr. Simpkins was right. He shut the box with a bang,
dropped into his easy-chair, thrust his hands deeply into his
trousers pockets, and exclaimed, " Well, I'm dashed if this
isn't a rum go ! "

It was indeed a "rum go." To understand how " rum"
and why young Mr. Simpkins was so visibly affected, it is
necessary to roll back the flight of time the short space of
one year.

About twelve months before young Mr. Simpkins was
attracted by R. E. D.'s advertisement he was passing
through a quiet square in the north-west of London shortly
after midnight.

He had been to the theatre, and had started to come
home in a hansom cab ; but it was November, and about
the Novemberest fog within the memory of living man had
settled down upon the metropolis ; and after driving round
this square five times, and failing to find an outlet, the cab-
man had suggested that his fare would get home quicker
if he got out and walked.

In this opinion the fare coincided, and this was the
reason that at a quarter after midnight he was holding on to
the railings of Blank-square, and wondering whether he had
better stay where he was till the morning, or rush into the
unknown dangers of the space beyond. It was while he
was turning the position over in his mind, and striking
vesuvian after vesuvian in the vain hope that by their light
he mio-ht discover some point to which he could steer, that
strance music stole across the air.

198 THREE BRASS BALLS.

He knew he was in a square because of the railings ; he
knew there were houses all round as a matter of course ;
but he could see no lights in the windows, nor could he
distinguish the faintest outline of architecture. The fog
was too thick for that.

It was evidently from one of the houses that the music
proceeded.

It was very faint and light, and he guessed it was a
musical box. He could catch the sound distinctly, for all
traffic was stopped, and there was nothing to disturb the
dense stillness.

First the oox played "Home, sweet Home," then "Annie
Laurie," then " The Last Rose of Summer/' then " I'm
leaving thee in sorrow, Annie," and then " Pretty Jemima,
don't say no." And it was just at the end of the fifth tune
that the belated wayfarer heard a sharp shriek that curdled
his blood.

It was the shriek of a woman, and it seemed to come
from the same direction as the musical box. Then all was
still, and Mr. Simpkins, terrified at the idea that perhaps
evildoers were abroad and no policeman could be called,
listened eagerly for a repetition of the noise.

It never came, but presently he heard the sound ol
a front door pulled to sharply, and then his ears told
him that someone was hurrying away on the pavement
opposite.

He would have made an excursion across the road to see
if he could discover anything, but he dared not leave go the
railings. By the time he had wondered three or four
times what he ought to do the square was as still as death
again.

He had an attack of the horrors then. He didn't like bein"

A MUSICAL BOX. 199

in a lonely place where shrieks had been heard. He had
a gold watch on and a diamond pin, and he felt that if any
midnight prowler came along the fog would offer him a fine
chance to knock him down and get clear away with what-
ever he liked to help himself to.

Arguing in this way Mr. Simpkins was nerved with the
courage of despair, and made a desperate effort to go on.

After floundering about for nearly three-quarters of an
hour, he ultimately found himself in Oxford-street, although
he had fancied he was close to the Hampstead-road.

He srot as far as the Horseshoe in Tottenham Court-road
in safety, and then, as his residence was at Haverstock
Hill, he managed, by following his nose, keeping in a
straight line, and appealing occasionally to much-enshrouded
forms that sometimes were policemen and sometimes pillar-
boxes, at last to reach Laburnum Villa.

He was so delighted to be safe at home that he turned into
bed and forgot all about his adventure in the square, and
dreamt the dream of the just.

And the next morning at breakfast he read in the
Standard that a fearful murder had been committed in
Blank-square ; that a young woman's throat had been
cut by some person unknown, and that the deed was
probably committed between the hour of midnight and
1 a.m.

All the particulars known were given in a second edition,
which came out at ten o'clock.

Mrs. Eva Littleton lodged at 9, Blank-square, having the
drawing-room floor. She was the only lodger. The land-
lord of the house and his wife had been visiting a friend at
Norwood, and had been unable to get home on account ot
the train service being suspended by the fog. When they

200 THREE BRASS BALLS.

returned in the morning, and let themselves in with the
latchkey, the first discovery they made was their lady
lodger dead on the floor of her room. The motive might
have been robbery or not. The rings the deceased usually
wore were gone, and so were her watch and locket. All
the reporter had been able to ascertain about Mrs.
Littleton was that her husband had never been seen, that
a dark gentleman sometimes came to tea, and that the land-
lady didn't know anything of her for or against, except
that she paid her rent regularly, and lived respectably so
far as she knew, and that sometimes she had letters from
abroad.

At the inquest Mr. Simpkins volunteered his evidence, but
no clue was found to the perpetrator of the deed, and the
young solicitor had almost forgotten the strange incident in
his career when his newly-purchased musical box brought it
all vividly back to his memory again.

He sat down that evening in his easy-chair at home ; and
with the musical box on the table playing its twelve tunes
to him, he thought out what he should do to try and get to
the other end of the chain of evidence of which he now held
the first link.

He was going to be an amateur detective. He had made
up his mind so far as this, that he would try, alone and
unaided, to fathom the mystery of the long-forgotten murder
in Blank-square.

R. E. D. had told him that the ticket of the musical box
had been found among her husband's papers after his
death. Who was he, and how came he to be pawning the
property which was stolen from Mrs. Littleton on the ni°mt
of the crime ? That was the first thing to ascertain.

The following day he went over to R. E. D.'s residence,

A MUSICAL BOX. 201

She had paid her bill that morning and gone away.

" Had she left any address ? "

" No, she hadn't."

That was the gist of the conversation between Mr.
Simpkins and the servant on the doorstep, and the young
solicitor failed in all his subsequent efforts to find out R. E. D.

He was sure it was the identical musical box of the
murdered woman, because he remembered on the trial it had
come out that some of her jewellery was missing too, and
here was the jewellery and the musical box, all pawned pre-
sumably by the same person.

He fancied he ought to communicate with the police, but
he wanted, if he could, to have the merit of discovering the
mystery himself.

If the culprit was R. E. D.'s husband, he was dead, and
couldn't be hanged, of course ; but still it would be some
satisfaction to trace the crime home to him.

He determined to keep the matter to himself for a while,
and see what he could find out.

*****

One evening Mr. Simpkins sat at his open window enjoy-
ing the air. His musical box was on the table by him, and
being wound up it was playing its tunes.

Mr. Simpkins was gazing at nothing in particular and
everything in general, when suddenly his attention was
attracted by a man on the opposite side of the road.

This man had stopped suddenly, and was listening in-
tently to the music.

As the tunes succeeded each other he seemed to be a
prey to some violent emotion ; then, catching the earnest
look of Mr. Simpkins, he pulled his hat over his eyes and
strolled away.

202 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The idea flashed across Mr. Simpkins's mind in an instant
that this was the missing murderer.

The more he thought of it the more he felt convinced
that chance and the musical box had put him on the scent.

He rushed into the hall, put on his hat and hurried off
after the stranger, but he had disappeared. He went up
one street and down another, but the man was not to be
seen.

The next night he sat at the window again, and
singularly enough there was the same mysterious stranger
on the opposite side of the road.

Mr. Simpkins wasn't quite sure what he should do. He
thought a little diplomacy was advisable. He couldn't walk
straight out and give a man into custody for listening to a
musical box.

" I must scrape acquaintance with this man somehow,"
he said, " and try the effect of a sudden surprise on his con-
science. I've heard that's what detectives do."

No sooner was the idea conceived than it was executed,
and Mr. Simpkins was smoking a cigar and strolling up
and down in front of his house. Singularly enough the
other man strolled up and down too, and didn't seem in-
clined to go.

" Ah," thought Mr. Simpkins, " he wants to make an
excuse, and speak to me. I'll give it him. He's playing
into my hands."

The stranger was now close to the amateur detective.

" Beg pardon, sir," said the stranger, " but could you
tell me what the rent of that house next door is ? "

The house next door was to let, and empty, and the
notice only gave the name of the agent to apply to.

" I believe it's £60 a year," said Mr. Simpkins

A MUSICAL BOX. zo 6

" And could you tell me about the size of the rooms ? "

Mr. Simpkins was delighted. The man was playing
completely into his hands.

" Very fair/' he answered ; "but they are the same size as
mine, and if it is any convenience you can step into mine
and see."

The stranger seemed delighted at the proposition.

" You are very good," he said, " and if it's no trouble
I should like to. I'm looking for a house, and I want to
decide at once."

Mr. Simpkins led the way into his house, and showed the
stranger over it. Then he prepared for his grand coup.

He took him into his sitting-room, where the musical box
was.

The stranger's eyes were on it in a moment, and Mr.
Simpkins noticed the look.

In an innocent way, he remarked, " Ah, you are looking

at my musical box."

" Yes," said the stranger; " it seems a very good one."

" Yes, it has a curious history — it belonged to a lady who
was murdered."

The stranger started.

" Murdered ! Good heavens, you don't say that ! Why,
when I " Then he suddenly paused and seemed con-
fused.

This was Simpkins's opportunity ; he ran to a drawer and
pulled out the jewellery he had redeemed.

"And these," he cried, holding them up to the man
"also belonged to the murdered woman."

*****

" Oh, indeed," said the stranger; " well, then, I'm bound
to inform you that you are my prisoner."

204 THREE BRASS BALLS.

"What do you mean?" cried Mr. Simpkins, starting
back with astonishment.

" I shall arrest you on your own confession of murdering
Eva Littleton, and being in possession of the property stolen
from her house on the night of the crime ! "

Mr. Simpkins didn't know if he was on his head or his
heels.

" Do you know I'm a solicitor, sir?" he said.

"Yes, I do," answered the man, " and I've suspected you
ever since you gave evidence at the trial. It wasn't a bad
dodge in case anyone should turn up who had seen you in
the square that night."

" What the deuce do you mean ?"

" That I'm going to give you into custody ! Why, you've
got the murdered woman's property! I always thought you
had."

Mr. Simpkins was dumb with amazement. He was so
confounded and astonished that when the stranger put his
head out of the window and shouted " Police ! " he simply
sat down and waited, while a big crowd came outside and
a policeman came up stairs, and when he found himself in a
cab going to the station on a charge of murder, all he could
say was, "Well, I'm blest! "

*****

At the station the stranger made the charge, and then
Mr. Simpkins learned that he was an amateur detective, who
was always trying to find out mysterious murders. He had
lived in Blank-square, and knew the tunes the box used to
play, and he had always said some day he should hear that
box again, and he had ; and when he found out that the
house it came from was the house of Mr. Simpkins, who at
the trial had confessed he was in the square on the night of

A MUSICAL BOX. 205

the murder, he had put two and two together and been
" diplomatic."

Then Mr. Simpkins explained to the inspector that he
had bought the tickets of a lady, and that he had been doing
a little amateur detective business too ; and his story
seemed so probable that at last the charge became a
general conversation, and the amateur detective confessed
perhaps he had been in too great a hurry in arresting Mr.
Simpkins, and Mr. Simpkins confessed he had been in too
great a hurry to suspect the amateur detective.

" But why did you go so white when I showed you the
jewellery?" asked Mr. Simpkins.

" Because I thought I was alone with a murderer and a
madman," answered the amateur detective.

The inspector saw there was no case, so he detained the
property and let Mr. Simpkins go home.

The police set inquiries on foot for R. E. D., but they
never found any trace ot her, and they came to the con-
clusion that her husband, wherever he was, had committed
the murder and pawned the things, and she had really
found the letters when he died, and sold them, little think-
ing that they were the connecting link of a mysterious
murder.

And since that day Mr. Simpkins has never purchased
pawn-tickets advertised in the newspaper. A friendship
has sprung up between him and "the stranger." They
have both retired from the amateur detective business, but
they often talk of the Blank-square murder, and the strange
adventure it led them into, all through a musical box that
played "Annie Laurie," "Home, sweet Home," " The Last
Rose of Summer," and " I'm leaving thee in sorrow, Annie."

ajj sfr: sfc sfc +.

20 6 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The murder here described will not be recognised. The
circumstances have been altered, as the adventure in con-
nection with the pawned property happened to a gentle-
man well known in society. The mystery of the murder
has never been revealed, nor the motive discovered, but
the pawned property is still in the possession of the
authorities. The gentleman has no desire to claim it.
Amateur detectives are so fashionable now, he might be
arrested again.

Pledge XVII.
A PAIR OF EARRINGS.

A CROWD of roughs with a fringe of the respectable
classes ; gangs of ragged boys and dirty women, with
unkempt hair and battered bonnets ; here an Irish group
discussing with animated gestures the misfortunes of an
absent member ; there a pale-faced woman with a baby
clasped in her arms, her eyes red and swollen with weeping;
over all, a hubbub of jeers and oaths and gutter slang.

The same crowd, differing only slightly in its elements,
gathers almost daily at a certain hour outside Bow-street
Police-station, for it is the time when " Black Maria," the
prison van, stands waiting at the door, and the signal is
given that the prisoners are coming out.

A lad of about eighteen comes first — a full-blown
specimen of the London rough ; he steps up jauntily, and
his comrades in the crowd give him a cheer. He turns his
wicked face round with a daring grin upon it, and waves
his hand as the constables hustle him in, and shut him in
one of the compartments.

An old woman, her grey hair matted and dishevelled, her
features grimed with dirt, and her rags caked with the filth
of the streets, comes next, and her feeble limbs hesitating at
the high steps, she is hoisted up with scant courtesy by the
officials.

" There's Biddy Maloney ! Good-bye, Biddy ! " shouts the
Irish group, and Biddy launches out a wild Irish impreca-

2oS THREE BRASS BALLS.

tion as her farewell benison to her neighbours from the
court hard by.

The next " passenger " is a jaunty gentleman, in a light
suit of the latest cut, and a tail hat set jauntily on one side ;
he twirls his moustache as he gets into the van, and seems
quite amused at his situation. As he passes in, he shouts
out something which seems like a foreign language to the
respectable fringe. It is thieves' patter, but someone in the
crowd understands it well enough and answers him. The
man is a swell mobsman caught picking pockets, and the
gentleman in the crowd has probably been told whom the
stolen watch and pocket-book have been passed to.

There is a slight silence as the next "character" is
brought down the steps of the court-house. " Poor fellow !"
says a lady who has been stopped by the crowd on
her way to Covent Garden Market ; " how respectable he
looks."

It is not a pleasant sight to see, this handsome young
fellow of thirty, dressed like a gentleman, white faced,
trembling, and abashed, as, with head bent low, he passes to
the prison van.

As he stands upon the step, a woman's cry of grief rings
out loud and clear. He turns sharply at the sound, his white
face flashes for a moment on the crowd, and he is gone.

There are only four prisoners ; the door is banged to, the
policemen leap into their places, the van drives off, and the
crowd parts and dissolves.

But one young girl still stands clutching the railings bv
the court, and looking after the van with a look of unutter-
able despair. It was she who uttered the cry It is her
young husband ; the father of her little child, the man she
trusted with her whole heart and soul, that she had just seen

A PAIR OF EARRINGS. 209

thrust into the prison van, with ragged outcasts and hardened
sinners.

Yesterday she believed him to be the best of men ;
yesterday she held her baby up to him to kiss with all a
mother's pride ; yesterday she thought that fortune was at
their feet, and that nothing could break up that happy little
home.

To-day she knows that he has broken the laws of God
and man ; to-day she knows that they have lived in a fool's
paradise ; that the plenty with which she has been sur-
rounded has been won by fraud ; that he whom she believed
so noble and so good is a detected thief — a man who has
betrayed the confidence reposed in him, and systematically
robbed the firm who gave him a position of the highest trust.

To-day she has listened, with ashen cheeks and a bursting
heart, to the story of his systematic guilt, and her short
dream of happiness is departed for ever. To-day she has
learnt that she, too, has been cruelly deceived, and that
while with loving care she husbanded the resources at home,
he was squandering his ill-gotten wealth with dissolute men
and women.

She does not realise the worst all at once. All is forgotten
for the moment but the shame of seeing her husband a
prisoner. It is only when she kneels by the cradle of her
little one in the desolate home whose master will come to it
no more, that she realises the depth of her shame and
humiliation.

*****

Winifred Marks knew the worst the day that her husband
was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. She knew
then how he had deceived her from the first ; how he had
married her when he was over head and ears in debt ; how

O

210 THREE BRASS BALLS.

he had plunged further into crime to make a home and keep
her in what he called "style"; and how, after a time, he
had gone back to the old fast life he had led in the days
before she crossed his path and inspired him with a pure
passion.

Ned Marks, with his handsome face and soft winning
tongue, had made an easy capture of Winifred's heart in the
old days when she walked to and fro between her mother's
house and the florist's in Oxford-street where she was a
shopwoman. He met her going home first, and rendered
her a slight service in freeing her from the attention of an
elderly Oxford-street pest. Then he came to the shop for
buttonholes, and so — but why re-tell an old story ? Knowing
that marriage was the end of the first volume of their
romance, is there one of my readers, male and female, who
cannot fill in the incidents for themselves ?

Ned had got into a fast set. He had gambled and lost a
lot of money ; he had, even in the days of his courtship,
begun a system of fraud in order to supply his constantly
impoverished exchequer. He held a fair position in a City
counting-house, and his salary was £250 a year, but he
lived up to treble the amount, and he was a gambler by
instinct.

Winifred came across his path like an angel of grace.
He fell honestly in love with her, and determined, in his
impetuous way, to marry her and live happy ever afterwards.

Her mother died, and she was friendless and without
counsel. She turned all the more readily to the shelter he
offered her, and was as proud of her young, handsome
husband as ever woman was of man.

It was all couleur de rose for two years. Then Ned
began to come home later and later, and to look ill and

A PAIR OF EARRINGS. 211

worried. He told her it was some important business of the
firm that kept him late and worried him, and she never
doubted it. She had all she wanted — a pretty home, no
stint of money, and presently God gave her a little baby to
keep her company when Ned was away.

It was when the baby was six months old that suddenly
the crash came and her idol was shattered. It was then that
his wild wicked deeds were blazoned to the world, and she
learned the lie he had lived so long.

She loved him then more than ever. In his agony and
shame she pitied him, and would have gladly borne his
punishment for him. But the law hid him from her sight,
left her husbandless and her child an orphan, and the law
and her husband's creditors swept down upon his effects
and left her homeless and penniless — a felon's wife with a
baby at her breast.

The law provided him with food and shelter and medical
care because he was guilty ; the law cast her forth an
outcast with her child, to beg or borrow, or steal or die,
because she was innocent.

The law takes no heed of the innocent wife and the
helpless children when it seizes on the bread-winner. It
knows nothing of ruined homes or broken hearts. To the
guilty the law is merciful, to the innocent it is merciless.

Society will take care that the felon's punishment is
humane and tempered with mercy God help the felon's
wife and babes, for they are no concern of Society's.

Winifred Marks, a fortnight after her husband's sentence
had been pronounced, was alone in the world with the
clothes she had been allowed to keep and the baby nobody
offered to keep for her. To live she must eat, to eat she
must earn money. The only way to earn money was to take

O 2

2i2 THREE BRASS BALLS.

a situation, and how could she do that with a baby in arms ?
She had ten years of helpless widowhood to look forward to,
and so, like the brave woman that she was, she looked the
situation boldly in the face and determined, with God's help,
to brave the storm and battle on till the law should give
back the prodigal to her loving arms.

In the long lonely nights after the first bitter blow she
would lie with her baby at her breast and picture the ten
years as past. She was twenty-four now, she would be
thirty-four then, and Ned would be ten years older, and, oh,
so changed !

She prayed to God to let her live, to help her to battle
bravely through those weary years, for the child's sake — and
for Ned's.

*****
"Boarding-House for Children."

It was written in ugly black letters on a bit of board
nailed above the door of a lonely house on the London road
some twenty miles from town.

It was a grim, forbidding house to look at. A small
neglected garden surrounded it. Never a green leaf
relieved the sad, sombre sameness of the grey brick walls.
No human face peeped above the dirty muslin blinds that
shrouded the windows. No sound of life came forth from
it. It might have been a prison or the home of the dead.
The notice on the board said that it was a boarding-house
for children.

They must be very good children to make so little noise
the passer-by would think, as he gazed at the gloomy house
and reading the legend listened for the sound of children's
voices.

But if he went on into the village, and asked curiously

A PAIR OF EARRINGS 213

about the children's home he had passed on the way, the
mystery was solved.

The place was a baby farm, kept by a stern, sour-faced
woman, who ruled her charges with a rod of iron. There
was short shrift there for the baby that made a noise, said
gossip, and spiteful tongues whispered that there were many
good reasons why the children were never seen.

One bright afternoon in May a young woman with a baby
in her arms stood looking anxiously at the lonely house.

Apparently satisfied that it was the place she was in
search of, she knocked timidly.

The sour-faced woman came to the door.

"Does Mrs. Grunton live here?" asked the young
woman, betraying her nervousness in the trembling tone of
her voice.

" I'm Mrs. Grunton," was the answer ; and then, with a.
diabolical grin that was meant for a smile, the woman added,
glancing significantly at the baby, "Do you want to see me
on business?"

" Yes, if you please."

Mrs. Grunton invited her visitor to step into the parlour,
and begged her to state what she could do for her.

The young woman summoned up her courage, and told
her story. She wished to leave her baby with Mrs. Grunton,
to whom she had been recommended by a friend.

Mrs. Grunton would accept the charge on her usual

terms.

The terms were arranged, and the mother rose to leave.
Kissing her baby, with the tears running down her cheeks,
she placed it in Mrs. Grunton's arms, and begged her to be
kind to it, and take care of it. She should come and see it
as often as she could, and send the money regularly.

:i4 THREE BRASS BALLS.

" All right, my dear," said Mrs. Grunton, " of course you
will. By-the-by, you haven't given me your name and
address in case of accident."

The mother blushed scarlet.

" Is it necessary ? "

" Well, it's as well. Of course you mean to pay regular,
and all that sort of thing ; but accidents happen, and I
might want to write to you. It's usual to have the address."

The young woman hesitated a moment, then drew an
.envelope from her pocket, and gave it to Mrs. Grunton.

"That address will find me for the present."

Mrs. Grunton glanced at it. The name was a little in-
distinct. Would her visitor say what it was?

" Winifred Marks."

" Thanks. And the baby's name is "

" Edward."

They had reached the front door talking. Mrs. Grunton
had the baby in her arms. As she stood on the doorstep,
Winifred Marks turned and clasped the woman's hand.

"Oh, Mrs. Grunton," she said, "you will take care of
my baby, won't you ? I'm very poor, but I'll pay you well.
I wouldn't part with him if I could help it, but I am forced
to."

" There, there," answered Mrs. Grunton as cheerily as
she could, "your baby's as safe with me as if you had it
yourself. The air here will do it good. You won't know it
when you come again."

Then the door closed, and the baby was shut from the
yearning gaze of the young mother. And, with the tears
streaming down her cheeks, Winifred Marks went back to
London to take a situation and earn her daily bread.

•I 5 % "P 5jC ;j*

A PAIR OF EARRINGS. 215

For a twelvemonth Winifred Marks kept her situation,
toiling early and late for a paltry wage, just enough to keep
her and to pay for the child. When from her scanty
earnings she could save enough for the fare, she would go
and see it, but once or twice she returned terrified and
alarmed — the child looked so ill.

But directly afterwards Mrs. Grunton would write and say
that it was better, and she would be relieved.

But she fell ill herself, and for a fortnight was out of work,
and so had only just the money to send, and keeping out of
work she fell in arrears with the child's money.

One day she received a letter to say that unless the arrears
were paid at once the child would be sent to the workhouse.
" And if they won't take it," wrote the woman, " I sha'n't
feed it on credit."

The threat was inhuman. It went to the mother's heart
at once. The idea of her little one starving was so terrible
that it nearly drove the woman mad.

She arose from her sick bed and dressed herself. She
would go off there and then and fetch the child away. Then
she remembered that the woman would not give it up
without the money.

Winifred had to dress respectably to keep her situation,
but when she looked about her for something on which she
could borrow money her clothes were the only things she

saw.

Then she remembered that in her little treasure-box she
had still her husband's first present— the pair of gold
earrings he had given her in the old happy sweethearting
days.

Because they were the first present, she had saved them
from the wreck, and treasured them as something sacred.

216 THREE BRASS BALLS.

But now her baby was in danger, and to shield it she
would have given her life itself.

So she tenderly unwrapped the last link of the past from
the white paper, and went over the road to where the golden
balls swung in the sunshine.

The earrings were bought in the days when Ned Marks
scattered his gold with a light hand, and they were valuable
ones.

Winifred borrowed enough on them to pay her fare and
have a balance for Mrs. Grunton's bill. If she could settle,
she thought, she would be all right for another fortnight, and
by that time she would have got to work again.

Weak and ill as she was, she took the train and went
down at once. When she came to the " Boarding-House
for Children," and saw her little one, her heart stood still
with terror.

She snatched it from the woman's arms, and clasped it to
her breast, as a tiger snatches its whelp from the foe.

Death was in her baby's face. Its limbs were shrunken
and wasted, its little cheeks were hollow, and its large eyes,
gleaming with a strange light, stared from its head in a
weird, wild way that told its own story.

Fierce words and high woke the silence of Mrs. Grunton's
abode that afternoon. Winifred accused her of neglecting
her baby — of starving it. Then she burst out crying and
became hysterical, and then she threatened and was spiteful
again.

Mrs. Grunton was used to scenes probably, for no muscle
of her hard features relaxed.^ Only, when the mother rose
to take her child away, Mrs. Grunton stood with her back
to the door and held out her hand for the money.

What could a weak, friendless woman and an agonised

A PAIR OF EARRINGS. 217

mother do but pay to the last farthing? Anything to
get her child safe in her own loving arms, and see to it
herself. ■■

Out on the London road, with the thin baby staring at
her with its wild eyes, Winifred Marks for the first time
realised her position. What was she to do with the child ?

She had her return ticket, and went home with it, and
braved the wrath of a hard-hearted landlady, whose rent
was overdue.

Up in the little room, half-starved herself, she nursed it
and petted it, and tried her best to bring it back to health ;
but the mother's love came too late. The " Boarding-
House for Children " had done its work, and in a few days
the staring eyes of the felon's child shut suddenly and its
little thin limbs were rigid.

Then, childless and alone, penniless and half-starved,
the felon's wife lifted her tearless eyes to God and prayed
to be at peace where her baby was.

And in the hour of her supreme agony, tortured in body
and mind, lacking food and lacking warmth, with a dead
baby on her knee, and her future dark and dismal and
devoid of hope, could she have peered through the dividing
space, she would have seen the child's father, her guilty
husband, and envied him his happy lot.

He had a slight cold, and was in the prison infirmary
warmly tucked up, and the atmosphere was kept at a suit-
able temperature. By his side was a little jelly to tempt
his dainty appetite, and near him sat the kind doctor, who
was most solicitous about his health. All was order and
cleanliness and comfort ; and as the convict lay back and
dozed off peacefully he felt there were worse lots in the
world than that of a felon.

2i8 THREE BRASS BALLS.

Ay, indeed! The lot of a felon's wife and child, for
instance.

* * * * *

The earrings, unredeemed, hang to-day in the pawn-
broker's shop, and there they may hang for some time.
Perhaps they may hang there till Ned Marks's time is up,
and he may see them and buy them again — perchance for
some other lady-love. He may never recognise in them
his first present to the girl who lost her baby and broke her
heart because her punishment for being a felon's wife was
greater than she could bear, and who died long before his
ten years were over.

Pledge XVIII.
A FAMILY BIBLE.

THEY were a strange couple, the Rev. John Hogard and
his wife, and the gossips of Dorden talked about them
rarely.

Dorden dissents. Dorden is strong in chapels, and
Dorden's besetting dissipation is prayer meetings. The
Dordenites meet so often in strong bodies for lectures,
magic-lanterns, and schoolroom entertainments, that news
circulates rapidly. Add to this the fact that female Dorden
is given to gathering in little knots at its neighbours'
garden-gates, and that male Dorden goes to its local club
and institute with great regularity, and you will easily
understand how, in this pretty little village some thirty
miles from town, everybody's business is known to every-
body else.

The Rev. John Hogard was known to everyone before
he had been a resident ten days. When it was rumoured
through the village that Myrtle Cottage had been
taken by a clergyman, and a clergyman of the Church of
England, there was quite a little flutter in the dovecotes of
Dorden. They soon found out he was married, and were
quite prepared to see a clerical gentleman of the ordinary
Established Church type, and to find his wife a haughty
dame on the wrong side of forty, who dressed severely,
wore her own hair, and looked down upon Dissenters.

The Rev. John and his wife arrived, and Dorden not only

220 THREE BRASS BALLS.

opened its eyes with astonishment, but its mouth too.
Metaphorically speaking, it opened its mouth very widely
indeed, and concerning the new arrivals it took Dorden a
very long time to shut it.

Certainly, if ever a couple gave legitimate cause for
village gossip, it was the rev. gentleman and his better half.

He was a nice-looking old gentleman, of about sixty-
three, very tall and stern, and quiet, but with something
very strange in his eyes.

"A perfect gentleman," said everybody; "but there is
something curious about him we can't quite make out. He
looks as if he wasn't all there."

Not being all there was a Dorden equivalent for being
a little queer in the head. That was the worst thing gossip
found to say about the gentleman.

But about the lady. "Lady!" said Mrs. Sparkes, the
butcher's wife ; " a pretty lady ! " and Mrs. Sparkes tossed
her ringlets in a manner that spoke volumes.

Mrs. Hogard, it must be confessed, did not look like a
lady. She was a young woman of about three-and-twenty,
her hair was died of a dirty yellow colour, her big, bold
eyes seemed to leer by instinct, her cheeks were of roseate
hue that Nature never imparted, and she dressed in a style
which caused Dorden to blush to the roots of its hair.

They were indeed a strange couple, this grey-headed,
courteous, white-tied gentleman, and this fluffy, yellow-
haired young woman, who walked and talked and dressed
as no respectable woman ever did in this world.

At least, so said Dorden, and the more the new arrivals
were discussed, after chapel, at tea-meetings, and over
garden-gates, the more widespread grew the belief that
there was something very wrong about Mrs. Hogard.

A FA MIL Y BIBLE. 2 2 1

Myrtle Cottage was one of a row of houses — small
country villas of the modern type ; five rooms, a front
garden and a portico intended to be pretty. The rent was
about £28 a year, and so Dorden came to the conclusion
that the rev. gentleman was not going to live in grand style.

Dorden was quite right. After a few weeks it was a well-
established fact that the internal arrangements of Myrtle
Cottage were as peculiar as its mistress.

Strange tales flew round of very little meat from the
butcher's and a great deal of brandy from the grocer's ; of
strange sounds of oaths and threats spoken in a woman's
voice ; and gradually people began to speak of the Rev.
John Hogard with pity, for it was known that he was an old
man married to a young woman who was not only low in
her habits and vulgar in her dress, but who was, worse than
all, a confirmed drunkard.

Dorden puzzled its brains and speculated long as to how
this ill-assorted couple came together. We who are
privileged to peer back into the past may solve the mystery
at once.

The Rev. John Hogard was as kind-hearted and honest
a gentleman as ever wore the Church's uniform. Wei'
connected, and possessed of a good living, he passed twenty
happy years, knowing no trouble and feeling none of life's
bitterness, till the wife of his young manhood and middle
age was taken suddenly from him.

She fell forward dead in his arms one summer's day in the
parsonage garden.

The shock was great, and told upon his gentle nature.
The place where she had died grew hateful to him. He saw
her everywhere. His friends came about him and noticed
his altered appearance, his restlessness, and the strange

222 THREE BRASS BALLS.

look in his eyes, and advised travel and change of
scene.

They made him resign his curacy and go to another part
of England, to a famous health resort where the invalids
and the hypochondriacs flock together at certain seasons of
the year.

His friends were wealthy, and kept him well supplied
with funds. His elder brother, a high dignitary of the
Church, told him not to trouble himself with work, but to
seek health, and so, leading an idle and purposeless life, the
widower stayed on at the fashionable watering place, killing
time and brooding over his loss.

There is no doubt that this loss had seriously affected
him. It had not made him mad in any strict sense of the
word, but it had weakened his brain ; it had left him in a
weak, unsettled condition, in which an evil-designed person
might easily take advantage of him.

In an unfortunate hour such a person crossed his path,
and, to make it all the worse, that person was a woman.
Chance flung him into acquaintanceship with a red-cheeked,
yellow-haired young woman, who said she was a governess
in a nobleman's family, and that she had been sent out of
town to recover from an illness which she had contracted
in her employer's service.

Maud Harrington set her cap at the Rev. John Hogard
from the first — why, who can say ? The true history of her
life, if told, might explain her motive. She had been no
governess at all. Her early career it might not be well to
inquire too closely into. She was a bad, designing woman,
and was perhaps tired of the hand-to-mouth, rich to-day
and poor to-morrow, life she had been leading. She
evidently thought that this clergyman, whom she imagined

A FAMILY BIBLE.

to be wealthy and who was known to be highly connected,
could give her a permanent home, position, and the means
of gratifying her insatiable vanity.

She tried the game on, and succeeded beyond her ex-
p ctations. In a month she stood at the altar with her
di pe, and he swore to love and cherish a heartless and
al andoned adventuress.

The news of the rev. gentleman's second marriage reached
his friends speedily. They were astonished at first — dis-
gusted when they had made inquiries, and found out what
manner of woman it was who could claim kinship with them.

The wealthy relatives and the high dignitary of the
Church wrapped themselves in the mantles of their respect-
ability, and bade the erring one pass by on the other side.

The Rev. John and his yellow-haired wife found all doors
closed against them. In the expressive language of Society,
they were " cut dead."

Foiled in her desire to obtain social recognition and to
lead a fashionable life, Mrs. Hogard took to an old amuse-
ment of hers with renewed ardour, She had learned early
in her career a means of deadening shame and drowning
care ; and, now that there was nothing to relieve the
monotony of her life but the, to her, senseless chatter of a
dotard, she sought relief from the old source.

It was only by degrees that the utter worthlessness of the
woman who had caught him in her toils dawned upon the
poor clergyman, and the discovery made still further havoc
upon his rapidly-decaying powers.

He came to Dorden to hide and be quiet, to recruit his
health if possible, and, in a place where he was unknown,
to endure the burden of his shame. But, alas ! each day it
grew heavier. The demon drink had got so fast a hold of

224 THREE BRASS BALLS.

the woman now that she was beyond all reclaim, and to the
shame of being linked for life to a worthless woman came
the terror of being alone with a furious drunkard.

His health began to fail visibly under the double blow,
and Dorden, knowing of the drunken wife, saw the grey-
headed old clergyman shuffle along, bent and broken, as he
went for his morning walk, and pitied him.

They pitied him more than ever when, later on, they
learned that his worst trouble had yet to come.

This is no romance deftly spun in a novelist's brain.
This is but one of those life-histories whose truth is
stranger than aught fiction can furnish.

Lately in this village of Dorden I stood opposite
Myrtle Cottage as the early May sunshine smiled upon
the little front garden, and heard its history from one who
at the last was the truest friend poor Parson Hogard ever
had.

It was she who told me how one day, being then his next-
door neighbour, there came a low, half-frightened tap at the
door, and when they opened it, there, standing in the cold — •
it was a raw winter day — was the poor old clergyman, his
lips blue, and his features pinched and pallid.

At the proffered invitation he timidly slipped into the
room, and then half childishly began to whimper and
mumble out that he was very sorry to ask it, but could they
lend him a little coal to make a fire. His wife had gone to
London, and he had no coals.

And while he spoke he cast such longing looks at the
dinner-table that he was invited to sit down and eat.

He ate like a wolf !

He ate like a starved wretch that feels the fiercest pangs
of hunger/

A FAMILY BIBLE. 225

His secret was revealed, though he had kept it so well.

He had been driven out of his house as the animal is
driven from its lair — by the pangs of hunger.

Hi^ wife had taken all the money in the place and gone
up to London, and left him alone without warmth and with-
out food.

She came back that night mad drunk, and the parson was
seen no more outside for a time.

On the same day of the following month the feeble tap
came at the door again.

This time there was no excuse made.

Broken down in body and mind alike, the old gentleman
had lost the art of concealing his trouble. To the good
soul who had been his friend he sobbed forth his misery,
and to her he came for the food which was to keep life in
him.

Once a month the small allowance which his relations
still allowed him was forwarded through the solicitors. And
regularly as it came his wife seized it and went off and
spent it in drink, coming home only when the uttermost
farthing was spent.

Drink ! drink ! drink ! That was all she thought of now.
The home had gone to wreck and ruin ; the furniture bit
by bit was being sold ; his books, his clothes, all were going,
that she might gratify her fierce, unholy thirst.

Hunger she did not feel — about his hunger she never
cared. Warmth brandy gave her — that he needed warmth
in the chill winter days she never thought — or, if she did
think about it, she did not care.

The neighbours began to know how bad things were
with the poor old parson. Now and then Dorden, to its
credit did sundry good deeds by stealth.

226 THREE BRASS BALLS.

The old man found it worth his while to go out when he
was cold and hungry. Doors were opened to him, and he
was bidden sit by the fire and chat, and strange to say it
often happened when he came in that there was a cold
meat pie, which Mrs. Jones would like him to taste, or Mrs.
Brown had got some stew just going to be served up for
dinner. Would he stay and try a little ?

He was very grateful, and would mumble his thanks ; and
sometimes, too, he would cry, for the poor troubled mind
Was getting weaker than ever.

That he was poor and in trouble grew so well known at
last that somehow the high dignitary of the Church heard
of it, and he sent him now and then a hamper with hares
and pheasants, and sometimes a joint would find its way
into the hamper.

Unfortunately this generosity was thrown away, for the
hampers were opened by the yellow-haired lady, who bore
the hares and the game in triumph to the nearest market
town and there sold them. And every hamper day Dorden
knew that at nightfall the clergyman's lady would reel into
the village drunk on the proceeds of the day's sale.

When the second winter came round the Rev. John had
grown so feeble that he hobbled along to his neighbours
slowly, and leant on a big stick.

He came one day to the house next door to him with a
scared white face, which looked all the whiter for the deep
red mark round his eye. He was trembling like a child,
and looked frightened, as though he feared someone was
following him.

"She did that," he whimpered, presently; "she hit me.
I asked her for some bread because I was hungry, and she
hit me."

A FAMILY BIBLE. 227

He cowered down as he spoke, and rubbed his hands
together childishly, looking into the fire.

They comforted him as best they could, and tried to coax
more of his story from him, but his mind was wandering.

Suddenly he burst out with a long, incoherent story of
his old days. He was happy and rich and respected again.
He told them of his first wife, and then of his rich relations,
and how they'd all loved him once and been good friends
to him.

"But now," he muttered, becoming lachrymose again,
" I haven't a friend in the world."

He stayed till nightfall, and then tottered back to his home.

Three days went by, and no one saw him.

Then the neighbour who had first been kind to him
plucked up courage and went to Myrtle Cottage and
knocked at the door.

The yellow-haired one answered her. Her face fiery red
with drink, her eyes fierce and wild, she put her arms
akimbo and requested to know her visitor's business.

" I want to see Mr. Hogard," was the reply.

" He won't see anybody. He doesn't like people to
come prying into his business. They'd better mind their
own."

Then the door was banged-to in her face.

The days went by, and still the old clergyman remained
within doors. The neighbours had their eyes open, how-
ever, and they talked more than usual at the tea-meetings
and at the garden-gate.

One told how the things had been sent away from the
house lately and sold. Another had heard that even the old
gentleman's clothes had found their way to the village
pawnshop.

228 THREE BRASS BALLS.

Then the gossips put their heads together and compared
notes, and by so doing it was calculated that, beyond the
clergyman and his wife, Myrtle Cottage at the present time
could contain very little.

Mrs. Hogard had been watched lately, and her journeys
had been to two places, the pawnshop and the public-house.
She generally called at the former first.

It was one day when the old clergyman had not been
•seen out of doors for three weeks that Mrs. Hogard went
staggering through the village with a huge book under her
arm.

It was patent to everyone what it was, and a thrill of
horror went through the dissenting bosom of righteous
Dorden at the sight.

Under her arm the clergyman's wife carried a family Bible,
and everyone guessed its destination.

Things must have come to a pretty pass at Myrtle Cot-
tage if the family Bible of a clergyman was going to the
pawnshop.

An hour afterwards Mrs. Hogard, walking unsteadily, and
with a bottle poking its neck from under her mantle, came
.down towards her home.

The whole of the village could see how drunk she was,
and the women came to the doors and watched her.

Suddenly they saw her stumble and go down all of a
heap.

There were a crash and a shriek then ; the people,
running, found her lying on her face, while from her
trickled a little stream of mingled brandy and blood.

She had stumbled over a stone, fallen forward, and the
bottle in her arms shivering, a great jagged piece of glass
had cut her throat.

A FAMILY BIBLE. 229

They picked her up and carried her into the nearest
house. Clasped in her hand was the ticket of the Rev.
John Hogard's family Bible, and that, too, was smeared and
splashed with the strangely mingled fluid.

*****

While his wife lay wounded in the village, some of the
neighbours went off to Myrtle Cottage to break the news to
her unhappy husband.

They knocked and received no answer. They knocked
louder and yet louder, and shouted; and still no answer came.

Then they burst the door, and went fearfully in, one
behind the other, dreading what they might see.

Through the lower rooms they searched, and found them
almost bare ; the floors were dirty, and the few pieces of
furniture left gave evidence of neglect and violent treat-
ment.

Up in the room above they found what they were in.*
search of.

The Rev. John Hogard lay on an untidy bed, an old'
blanket thrown over him.

He did not move when the neighbours entered his room,
only his eyes turned towards the door with a strange, vacant
look.

"Where's my wife?" he mumbled. " Why doesn't she
bring me some food ? I'm hungry."

The neighbours came about him and gathered a strange
story from his disjointed utterances. The old clergyman
was quite childish now, but he knew that the pangs of
hunger were strong upon him. Little by little it came out
that he had hardly tasted food for days — that even his
clothes had been taken from him by his wife and pawned for
drink.

230 THREE BRASS BALLS.

" I'm so ill and so hungry," he groaned. " Why doesn't
my wife come ? "

Dorden was moved to its heart when it heard that the
poor old clergyman had been found in a state of absolute
starvation. All that Dorden could do it did, but the help
came too late. The Rev. John Hogard was past human
help.

He grew weaker and weaker, and still mumbled and asked
for the wife who did not come.

Just before the end, far-off scenes came back again to the
darkened mind, and he was in the garden of the parsonage
with the first wife he had loved so well.

All Dorden went to his funeral, and the high dignitary of
the Church sent his carriage to join in the procession,
*****

Mrs. John Hogard recovered in the infirmary from her
wound, and was out again soon after her husband had been
buried, but her red face and yellow hair were seen no more
in Dorden.

A few months back a woman, who said she was a clergy-
man's widow, was indicted at the Middlesex Sessions for
robbing an old man with whom she had been drinking, and
was sent to prison.

Her story that she was a clergyman's widow was not
investigated. Had it been it would have been found to be
quite true. The wretched outcast in the dock was once the
yellow-haired and drunken wife of the Rev. John Howard
There was still the scar across her throat where the broken
bottle cut her the day she pawned her husband's family
Bible and got drunk with the money.

Pledge XIX.
VARIOUS.

MRS. MORIARTY was the best of wives, and a splendid
manageress. Mr. Moriarty thought so at least, and openly
said so. Mr. Moriarty's employment was a precarious and
mysterious one, yet for ten years he had lived in Little
Georgiana-street, keeping a house, voting at elections, and
fetching the supper-beer from the public-house at the corner
with praiseworthy regularity.

Little Georgiana-street was not aristocratic, and had no
high-flown notions. It was chiefly remarkable for the crowds
•of dirty children upon its doorsteps, and the free-and-easy
conversations which the neighbours held with each other
from the upper windows of their houses.

It was a street where the blinds were more often twisted
round than pulled up, where wounded panes were healed
with brown paper plaisters, and where the outward and
visible signs of resident female industry were plentifully
placarded in parlour windows.

" Mano-linsr done here," "Ladies' own materials made
up," "Work done with a sewing machine," and " Charing
in all its branches," were among the many legends of the
street which he who ran might read.

There was another peculiarity about Georgiana-street,
ana that was the way its knockers were used.

The oldest inhabitant had never heard a rat-tat-tat given
at a Georgiana-street front door. Ladies and gentlemen

THREE BRASS BALLS.

knocking about the neighbourhood knew better than to
cause such confusion to a household.

A rat-tat-tat in Georgiana-street would have brought
every occupied floor to the door, as nobody could have
known for whom it was intended.

In Georgiana-street you ring the bell for the basement,
knock once for the ground floor, twice for the first, and
three times for the top. No fancy flourishes, no variations
on the knocker will do there. The knocks must be clear
distinct thumps, with a pause between each, so that the
listeners can count them and know whose business it is to
answer the door.

From this you will naturally infer that Georgiana-street
let lodgings, and you will be quite right. The householders
generally contented themselves with two rooms and a kitchen,
and "let off" the rest. Mr. Moriarty was no exception
to the rule, and by letting lodgings he paid his rent.

How he got his living, as I have previously stated, was a
mystery. Mrs. Moriarty didn't know, and he himself wasn't
always quite sure about it. But by some means or another
he managed to rub on, sometimes having a good week and
sometimes a bad one, and relying always on Mrs. Moriarty's
splendid management to pull him through.

The Moriartys were magnificent specimens of the come-
day, go-day, God-send Sunday class. The week drifted
by, and there was a wild struggle to tide over Saturday
night with a view of floating peacefully into the haven of
Sunday with a hot dinner; clean linen, the master's black
suit, and the missus's best gown and bonnet, and enough
loose cash over for an occasional outing.

Saturday night was a struggle, and then it was that the
management of Mrs. Moriarty asserted itself.

VARIOUS. 233

The best clothes were generally pawned about Tuesday,
the tablecloth, the parlour clock, and various other articles,
useful and ornamental, saw the Moriartys over Wednes-
day ; odds and ends, kitchen utensils, &c, insured Thurs-
day's necessities, and Friday made shift the best way it
could.

But Saturday was a dreadful day. On Saturday the shop-
ping had to be done, on Saturday the finery had to be re-
deemed, and old scores cleared off, on Saturday Sunday's
dinner had to be got in, and not only the dinner, but the
means of cooking it.

The sacrifices of the week had to be redeemed on Satur-
day night, and although on Monday they could begin to
float back again, and become money once more, there was
the intervening Sunday during which they must represent
invested capital.

It was in solving the problem of having your goods and
the money they represented — in having, as it were, your
cake and eating it too — that the wife of Mr. Moriarty's
honest bosom earned his loudly-proclaimed certificate that
she was " the wonderfullest woman at managin' as ever
was."

Mrs. Moriarty was proud of her honourable distinction
and the fame it won her. Young housewives in the neigh-
bourhood sought her advice eagerly. " What to pawn,
where to pawn, and how to pawn," was the subject of a
lecture which Mrs. Moriarty delivered gratis on many a
Saturday night at the house of call in Georgiana-street,
where the ladies of the neighbourhood exchanged confi-
dences over the marketing glass.

But one eventful day the great Past-Mistress of the Art
of Domestic Management, the famous authoress of " Ho^v

234 THREE BRASS BALLS.

to Live on Nothing a Week," found even her resources
heavily taxed.

There came a crisis over which nothing but absolute
genius could triumph.

Did Mrs. Moriarty rise to the height of the occasion, o r
did she yield at last to the army of difficulties which the
Fates arrayed against her ?

Maria Moriarty, the best manageress in Georgiana-street,
here let the history of your famous struggle with circum-
stances be narrated. This Sunday morning, when, having
given John Moriarty his second cup of tea, you furtively
snatch the Dispatch from him and turn to the " Three Brass
Balls," I have no doubt you will blush to find it fame.

The blow came late one Thursday night, the night when
matters were at their lowest ebb. Mr. Moriarty came home
about eight, and there was a letter for him on the kitchen
table.

He opened it, read it, said "Phew! Well, I'm blest!
Here's a go ! " and made use of various other ejaculations,
expressive but by no means explanatory.

When he had recovered himself from the effect of what
was evidently very startling intelligence, he called up stairs
to Maria.

Maria was at the front door taking the air and gratifying
the sight-seeing instincts of the female breast by watching
the undertakers' men trying to get a very wide coffin into
the very narrow doorway of the opposite house.

Maria did not at first respond like a dutiful wife to the
voice of him she had promised at the altar to obey, for the
coffin had stuck and the situation had grown deeply interest-
ing. Furthermore, the wife of the gentleman for whom the
coffin was intended had appeared at an upper window, and

VARIOUS. 235

was giving a sympathetic doorstep audience a full, true, and
particular account of the last hours of her " poor dear,'
and had just got to the period when " he went off like a
lamb, fancying he was a-playin' skittles and a-shoutin' out
as he'd got a pint on the game and Joe Smith wasn't playin'
fair." So Mrs. Moriarty lingered, and allowed Mr. Moriarty
to shout out " Mariar ! " three times before she turned from
the door and went down stairs.

Then she found Mr. Moriarty in a state of intense ex-
citement, which she called upon him to explain.

The explanation was simple. Mr. Moriarty's uncle and
aunt in the country, of whom he had expectations, were
coming on an unexpected visit to town, and would arrive
on Friday. They had invited themselves to stay with Mr.
Moriarty, and trusted he would arrange to lodge them and
take them to see everything in London on Saturday, as on
Saturday night they returned to their native village.

When Mrs. Moriarty had heard her husband's explana-
tion she sat down in a chair the picture of blank despair.

This uncle and aunt she knew were people to be made a
fuss with. This uncle and aunt were reported to have saved
at least £200. This uncle and aunt had given them hospi-
tality several times when they had scraped up the money
for a couple of days in the country. This uncle and aunt
had always been led to believe that in London Mr. and
Mrs. Moriarty were very great people indeed, and now this
uncle and aunt were coming to see for themselves, and, of
all days of the week, on a Friday.

" We must manage it somehow, Mariar," said Mr.
Moriarty in a hollow voice.

" It's all very well to say somehow" answered Maria,
bridling up ; " what how is what I want to know."

THREE BRASS BALLS.

"You're a wonder, my dear, at managing," artfully
suggested the master of the house ; " I'm sure if you was
to set your wits to work you'd manage it."

" Look here, Mr. Moriarty, this is Thursday ; they're
coming to-morrow. How much have you got? "

Mr. Moriarty put his hands into his pockets and fumbled.
The result was two half-crowns, a florin, a shilling, a screw
of tobacco, three halfpence, and a clay pipe.

Mrs. Moriarty surveyed the result of this voyage of dis-
covery with scorn.

" Now, look here," she said ; " this is what I've got."

And then from her pocket she produced a little bundle of
pawn-tickets.

" There's your Sunday clothes, there's the parlour clock f
there's the big saucepan, the best tablecloth, the clean
sheets, the blankets, the plated forks, and the best teapot."

And as the good lady mentioned each of the articles on
which they had lived during the week, she laid the pawn-
broker's receipt for it on the table.

Mr. Moriarty suggested with a sickly smile that this uncle
would have to be visited before the visit of the other uncle
could be decently arranged for.

" It's no joking matter," said Mrs. Moriarty indignantly.
" All these things must be got out if they're coming to stay
here, and we're to go out with 'em on Saturday. Now, if
it had been Sunday, I could have managed as usual."

" Of course you could, my dear. We should have had
the first floor's and the top floor's rent, and with your

management I say, my dear ; do you think the first

floor 'ud pay his rent to-day instead of Saturday, to
oblige us ? "

"John Moriarty, you're a fool ! "

VARIOUS. 237

It was foolish to imagine such a thing, and John confessed
it. Still, something must be done.

Presently Mrs. Moriarty rose from her seat and paced
the room. She was evidently in thought, and John refrained
from disturbing her. Presently she put her foot down, and
exclaimed triumphantly " I've got it ! "

Mr. Moriarty looked down. He expected to see a black-
beetle a flat corpse beneath the foot of his lady-love.

There was no romance in John Moriarty's nature. " Got
what, my dear ? " he inquired nervously, when, the foot
being moved, no victim was to be seen.

"An idea," answered his spouse. "I believe I can
manage it."

Mr. Moriarty rubbed his hands. " I knew you could, my
dear — I knew you could," he exclaimed gleefully ; " you're
the wonderfullest woman at managing as ever was ; I
always said so, and now I know it."

It was not an easy task to redeem all those articles with

eight shillings and three halfpence, and none but a domestic

genius like Mrs. Moriarty could have conceived the plan or

carried it to a successful issue.

*****

Early the next morning Mrs. Moriarty set to work. The
guests were to arrive at midday, and there was no time to
lose. She went round to the tradespeople where her credit
was good till Saturday, and purchased the meat and vege-
tables, tea and butter, &c, necessary for the feeding of the
expected aunt and uncle.

Having secured a fine piece of boiling beef, the first
difficulty was the large saucepan to boil it in ; that had to be
redeemed. The stock of ready-money was sufficient for
that and so the beef in the saucepan was speedily on the fire.

2-,S THREE BRASS BALLS.

Mr. Moriarty remained at home to superintend, for the
exigencies of the case demanded much running out on the
part of his better half.

The next thing was to get the rooms tidy and have the
parlour clock, which was such an ornament to the mantel-
piece ; uncle and aunt must see it when they arrived, and
then the rest was easy.

Running up stairs to the bed-room — the room which was
to be aunt and uncle's, for Mr. and Mrs. Moriarty would
make shift in the parlour with the sofa — the clever house-
wife slipped off the dirty sheets and the blankets, and went
off to the pawnshop with them. What she got on them re-
deemed the clock. At the same time she took the parlour
table-cover and pawned it for enough to redeem the white
tablecloth. This was put on the table as if laid for an early
dinner.

At midday aunt and uncle arrived, and were entertained
in the parlour by Mr. Moriarty, while Mrs. M. busied her-
self in the kitchen, John having strict instructions to keep
them out of the way.

Directly the beef was boiled it was put on a dish and
covered over, while the saucepan was hurried off again to
"uncle's." The big saucepan and one or two smaller
utensils were pawned for enough to redeem the plated
forks ; and hot, but happy, Mrs. Moriarty returned,
finished laying the table, and took her place at the head
of it.

After dinner John took uncle and aunt up to the top of
the street, and showed them the way to the park. They
were to stroll about, and return in time for tea, when he
and Maria would be dressed and ready to go out with
them.

VARIOUS. 239

Directly they were out of sight, the best tablecloth was
hurried off and pawned, and the table-cover redeemed with
the proceeds.

Now the most difficult task of all had to be approached,
and it worried the Moriartys very much. John's Sunday
clothes had to be redeemed that he might accompany his
revered relatives to the play.

Off went Mrs. Moriarty with all her own finery, and
pawned it to redeem John's things. John should take the
visitors out to-day, and then to-morrow he should have
business and stay at home while Mrs. Moriarty took them
out. Then she could pawn his things and redeem her own
with the proceeds.

This arrangement being agreed to, all was well as far as it
went. After tea John departed in his holiday apparel to
escort his visitors to the theatre, leaving his wife at home to
complete her management.

The bed had to be made up for the guests now, and the
clean things put on it. The parlour clock had done its
duty ; it had been seen ; it could easily stop, and be sent
away to be cleaned and repaired. Under Mrs. Moriarty's
arm it went to the famous depository whose sign is three
golden balls, and was pawned for nearly enough to redeem
the blankets and sheets. The balance was made up with
the parlour fire-irons, which had hitherto escaped the con-
scription.

The bed was comfortably made up by the time aunt and
uncle returned. John was loudly informed that the clock
had suddenly gone wrong, and, it being so awkward not to
know the time, had been sent up the street to be repaired,
and the white tablecloth was not missed, as supper was
brought in on a tray.

240 THREE BRASS BALLS.

That night Mr. and Mrs. Moriarty slept the sleep of the
just in a make-shift on the sofa, the table-cover and various
ingenious contrivances doing duty tor bed-clothes.

In the morning the table-cover went in early, and the
tablecloth came out in time for breakfast. Mrs. Moriarty
cautiously effected the change of clothes, pledging John's
and redeeming her own, and then she chaperoned the
country visitors through the cheap sights, leaving John at
home with full instructions as to the various necessary
manoeuvres in ringing the changes with the pledges.

The visitors were to depart that evening, so John took
the sheets and blankets over at once. The cold beef was to
be for dinner, so the saucepan remained in ; the white cloth
remained on, the table-cover not being required till dinner
was over, so that the sheets and blankets yielded the ready-
money which John required to carry on with, it being
necessary to lay in various little things.

The party returned to dinner, and after dinner they
suggested that the house should be shut up, and that both
John and Maria should go out shopping with them, and
accompany them to the station.

No excuse would be accepted.

" Go and change thy clothes, lad," said uncle, " and
come wi' us. 'Tain't often I trouble thee, and I'd like for
us a' to have a walk."

The Moriartys exchanged signals of distress, and got out
of the room together.

The capital required to complete the arrangement was
barely sufficient, and here was John's suit to be got out.

What was to be done ?

John counted up what he could spare, and it was far short
of the necessary sum.

VARIOUS. 241

They rushed into the kitchen and up to the bed-room.
There was nothing pawnable. All the available things
were in the parlour, and how could they get them out
unobserved.

It wasn't the slightest use trying for the rent yet. The
second floor didn't come home till eight, and the top floor
rarely " parted " before Monday morning.

Even Mrs. Moriarty was nonplussed.

If aunt and uncle had only been outside, she could have
pawned the contents of the house without removing them.
The pawnbrokers will take the key, and lend you so much.
She could redeem them before the lodgers wanted to come
in. But aunt and uncle were in the room, you see.

Suddenly the " wonderfullest of manageresses" had an
idea. "Mr. Bloggs" (that was the pawnbroker) "knows
us, and he's a decent sort," she said. " Go over, and
change there, and leave what you've got in your pocket to
make up the difference."

It was a brilliant idea. Mr. Moriarty rushed off and
found Mr. Bloggs willing to oblige. He changed in the
pawnbroker's back parlour, pawned his every-day clothes,
with five shillings in the pocket ; and Mr. Bloggs, out of
consideration for an old customer, lent him enough on them
to redeem his best.

Ten minutes afterwards aunt and uncle walked up
Georgiana-street, with Mr. and Mrs. Moriarty both in their
best clothes, and the neighbourhood stood on its front
doorsteps and wondered where " they was off to " in their

Sunday clothes.

*****
At the station that evening there was an affectionate
leave-taking, and uncle was so delighted with the hospitality

Q

242 THREE BRASS BALLS.

he had received that he chucked Mrs. Moriarty under the
chin, and presented her with a rive-pound note to buy
herself a present in remembrance of his visit to town.

That Saturday night there was a great redemption going
on, and the Moriartys talked over Mrs. M.'s excellent
" management " with a pleasure heightened by the fact that
uncle's fiver had restored to them all their opignerated
household gods.

'' Mariar, my dear/' said Mr. Moriarty, at supper, "you've
managed excellent. Why, I do believe, give you only a
frying-pan and a teapot, you'd keep house for nothing as
long as we'd just got enough to pay the interest."

The question of the interest and the halfpenny for each
ticket is a mere trifle to the ladies and gentlemen of the
Moriarty type. Lord Shaftesbury and his fellow philanthro-
pists are great upon the question of "thrift." I wonder
whether they know that among a certain class of the poor
the Moriarty system of management largely prevails, and
that a big portion of many a working man's scanty wage
goes to fill the pawnbroker's till with interest and ticket-
money, in consequence of the system of weekly pawning
and redeeming which, down Georgiana and kindred streets,
is considered part and parcel of skilful household manage-
ment.

The struggling poor, by this system of weekly pawning,
pay interest for loans on good security which would cause
many a Cork-street money-lender's client to shudder.
When our legislators have five minutes to spare, they might
give a glance at our pawnbroking system as it affects the
necessitous poor, and compare it with that of foreign
countries. In Austria pawnbroking is a charitable institu-
tion, and the State lends to the poor man money on his

VARIOUS. 243

goods without interest. In England the private trader is
authorised by law to charge 20 per cent., and something for
the ticket. The ginshop and the pawnshop are the great
twin brethren who stand like ogres in the paths of those
who aim at the social reformation of the poor. And the
Government of this country stands behind the ogres and
backs them up.

Pledge XX.
A WAR MEDAL.

At the prison gates in the early morning stands a poor
old woman, crippled and bent with age. A battered
bonnet, a shabby shawl, threadbare with long years of wear,
and its once glaring colours faded to a uniform dirty drab,
and a dress that bears the mark of long exposure to rain
and sun, — these are the outward and visible signs of old
Nanny Nettleship's rank and calling.

Eighty winters have set their snow upon her scanty hair,
and Time's cruel fingers have pinched the thin face into
wrinkles and puckers and seams, but still the aching limbs
must travel and toil, for there are little mouths that would
lack food did old Nannv Nettleship fold her hands in idleness
and rest her weary bones.

One of those little mouths is puckered with a baby smile
now at the prison gates as a little mite of six holding
Nanny's hand looks up into her face and lisps :

" Look, granny ! even God's glad daddy's coming out to-
day. See how He's making the sun shine."

" Yes, dearie," answers the old woman ; and then mutters
to herself, " It's many a long day since a bit o' sunshine
gladdened his heart, poor boy "

" How long will daddy be, granny ? "

" Not long, my pet."

" Granny, will God ever shut me up in a big black place
like this ? "

A WAR MEDAL

245

" The Lord forbid, my pet ! There's a pretty gee-
gee "

The old woman wishes to interrupt her grandchild's
prattle. Little Louie is given to that baby blasphemy which
City Missions and Sunday-schools are mainly responsible
for ; and the old lady has an idea that it is wicked. Louie
brings her the Sunday-school religion second-hand, and
sometimes a little bit mixed ; and old Nanny, who has had
a rough time of it in this world, finds Sunday-school religion
a hard nut to crack.

Louie's teacher has told her that God put her father in
prison for being wicked, and one day the child came home
terrified, and cried out that her poor daddy would have to
go to an awful place and be burnt with fire if he didn't
" 'pent." Teacher had told her so.

Old Nanny dratted the teacher's " imperence," and
soothed the little one by telling her it was all a pack of
lies.

And the next day the missionary called and expostulated,
and informed the old lady that, if she interfered with his
religious instruction, the occasional grants of tea and sugar,
blankets and coals, which the Mission found it worth while
to bestow, would be cut off.

After that Nanny held her peace. She let the Mission
consign her son to the flames hereafter for the sake of the
present warmth of the blankets.

All the help that could be got was wanted for Dan
Nettleship's family. Dan was doing his two years for a
robbery with which he had been mixed up. Dan's wife,
poor woman, lay on a bed of sickness, sinking slowly out of
her misery, and Dan's three little children had to be reared
and fed somehow.

246 THREE BRASS BALLS.

When the sentence was pronounced, Nanny was in court.
It broke her heart that her Dan should come to shame, for
the Nettleships came of honest stock.

Dan's father had fought his country's battles, and left his
arms and legs and eyes scattered about the globe, and in
his old age a grateful country allowed him a trifle to keep
all that was left of him from starving.

But when the remains of the old pensioner's body went
to look for its scattered fragments, a portion of his pension
was continued to his widow ; and having in her seventieth
year put her little income into Dan's pocket, she went to
live with him. Dan was her youngest child, but the only
one left to her. He was five-and-thirty, but she still called
him her boy. He was married, and so old Nan came back
from the pensioner's graveside to Dan's place, and set to
work to make herself as little a burden as possible.

It was all well enough at first, till Dan got mixed up with
bad company. He was deceived, fooled, and made a dupe
of. Old Nan will go to her grave believing that. But
appearances were against him. The cruel gentleman in the
white wig made it look so black that the jury, who didn't
know Dan as his mother did, said he was guilty, and the
judge gave him two years as easy and pleasant like as if
he'd been giving him a month's holiday to go to the seaside
for the benefit of his health.

He was such a nice, good-tempered judge, and smiled so
sweetly to show a set of white teeth, that Nan could hardly
believe he was hurting her boy till it was all over. But
when her son looked towards her with his ashen face, and
cried, " Mother, take care of Louie and the little ones," her
heart nearly stopped still, and she stood up in the back of
the court and called across to him to be of good heart for

A WAR MEDAL. 247

while her old hands could work his dear ones should not
starve.

Then he went down the well from the dock out of sight,
and Nanny tottered home to be husband and father
and mother to a sick and helpless woman and three little
children.

To be all that, and the bread-winner too, long after the
threescore years and ten of life had passed over her head !

She had roughed it years ago as a soldier's wife, and had
accompanied her husband's regiment many a time. She
had grown hardy in the old days, and now her early training
stood her in good stead. Louie, Dan's wife, was too ill to
work. She was feeble and ailing before the great trouble
came. After the trial she was prostrate. She lay like a
tired child whose heart is wrung with grief, and made no
effort. She had clung to her husband, who had put his
strong arms about her and kept her alive with love and
gentle care.

Now that he was taken from her she drooped swiftly as
the flower languishes where no sun comes.

Then it was that old Nanny Nettleship came and took her
place at the head of the little family. She nursed and
cheered the sickly wife, she loved and tended the children
She eked out her little pension among them, and went forth
to earn their bread. She went early mornings to the
markets, and bought and sold again. By sheer hard work she
built up a little connection in outlying suburbs, where she
could sell fruit and flowers and vegetables, and when her
load grew heavier than she could bear in consequence of the
increase of custom, she managed to get a meek little brown
donkey who drew her barrow

Winter and summer she was up in the early mornings to

2 4 S THREE BRASS BALLS.

buy at the market, and all winds and weathers she was in
the streets through the long day to sell her goods and earn
food and shelter for Dan's wife and children.

It was no easy task then to make both ends meet, for the
wife wanted many things that cost money, and Nan never
let the children go ragged or scantily clad.

So the two years drifted slowly by. The children grew
apace, but the wife drooped and drooped in spite of all
Nan's care, till at last the old woman feared her son would
be a free man only to find his children motherless.

But as the time drew near for her husband's release,
Mrs. Nettleship revived a little. The hope of seeing his
beloved face seemed to give her strength to live on.

" I shall see him before I go, mother," she would say to
the old lady, " and then I shall die happy."

The day of Dan Nettleship's release has come at last.
Over in the little room in Southwark the sick wife lies, her
thin hands clasped together, the fierce light of consumption
in her eyes, listening with eager ears for the first sound of
his footsteps.

The younger children are awed into quietness, for granny
has told them that daddy is coming home to-day. They
hardly know him. They were such mites when the trouble
came, that they could understand nothing of it, and now
they half dread the advent of this stranger who is their
"daddy."

Outside the prison gate stand the old woman and little
Louie, and presently he for whom they are waiting so
eagerly comes through the door.

The sun is shining brightly, and people are passing by,
but as the eyes of the man and the old woman meet every-
thing fades from their sight.

A WAR MEDAL. 249

" My boy, my boy !" she cries, and presently her old
arms are about his neck, and tears of joy are coursing down
her wrinkled cheeks.

Dan Nettleship kisses his old mother reverently yet half
fearfully. It seems to him that the prison taint is on him,
and that his lips pollute those of the honest old soldier's
wife who bore him and whom he has disgraced. Then he
looks half shyly at his little girl, as though he expected to
see her shrink away from him.

But Louie slips her little hand in his and looks up to him
with her lips pouted for a kiss. He picks her up in his
arms, and gives her, not one, but a dozen.

He puts her down, and presently she pulls him by the
coat as they walk along.

" Daddy ! "

"Yes."

" Mammy's waiting for you at home. Mammy longs to
see you so, and she's so glad you're coming home to-
day."

"God bless my poor Loo!" said Dan. " How is she,
mother?"

Nanny Nettleship told her son quietly all she had to tell.
It was no use deceiving him. Loo was sick unto death.

" She's only lived to see you, Dan, my poor boy," she
said.

Dan questioned his mother eagerly. Little by little he
won from her the whole story of the two years. His face
was very white as he learnt all, and thought of the torture
his dear ones had gone through, and all his brave old
mother had done when he was paying the penalty of his

crime.

There and then, in justification, half to himself, half

250 THREE BRASS BALLS.

to his mother, he went over the whole ground, showing
that, though technically he was guilty, morally he was
innocent.

" It was that barrister that prosecuted who settled me,"
he said. " He put it so straight, I should have found
myself guilty if I'd been on the jury."

They had quickened their pace as they talked, and so
they went along, the old woman holding her son's arm and
little Louie his hand.

They had quickened their pace because Dan was terribly
anxious to see his wife. In his prison, night after night,
through the weary months, in fancy he had pictured this
day, and now it had come.

He should clasp his poor darling to his breast once more,
and in his strong arms she should breathe what remained
to her of life quietly away. But she would not die. She
had grieved over him. That was it. Once by his side
again she would mend. He was very hopeful, was Dan,
and when they passed a square with some weak, sooty trees
in it, and heard a bird chanting a cockney carol to as much
sun as could see above the chimney-pots, the man, excited
with his new freedom, whistled the first bars of " Cheer,
Boys, Cheer," and without thinking, left go of his mother
and his child, and began to run as if he were in a hurry to
get home.

It was an old habit of his, this breaking into a run when
he was excited or thinking. But just as he began to run a
crowd turned round the corner, in hot pursuit of someone,
and the cry of " Stop thief ! " rang from a score of
lips.

A minute before a man had brushed past him,
running too. Before he could think, the crowd was

A WAR MEDAL. 251

rushing by There was a policeman among them joining
in the chase. He stopped for a moment and looked
at Dan.

Whether it was the knowledge that he had just come out
of prison, or a sudden revulsion of feeling at the sight of the
uniform he had such cause to remember, Dan didn't know,
but he began to tremble.

The policeman took hold of his arm. Nanny and little
Louie had come to Dan's side, and both wondered
what the policeman was doing. He showed them in a
moment.

Twisting Dan's arm with a professional jerk, he thrust
his hand into the side pocket of the pilot-coat he wore,
and drew forth a purse.

The crowd had stopped too, and gathered round. Among
them was a young lady, very hot and flushed and out of
breath.

" Is that your purse, miss ? " said the policeman, holding
Dan firmly

"Yes," said the young lady, "that's it; but he's not the
man who took it."

" No, miss ; but he'll do as well. It's been passed to him
by his pal. That's what they does mostly always. You'd
better come to the police-station now."

With that he seized Dan roughly, and forced him along.

White as a ghost, dumbfoundered and trembling, Dan
attempted to explain that he was innocent — that the purse
must have been put in his pocket.

Moaning and wringing her hands, old Nanny Nettle-
ship stood at the edge of the crowd with the trembling
Louie clutching at her gown and asking what daddy had
done now.

252 THREE BRASS BALLS.

And at home, waiting with a yearning heart, and count-
ing the minutes as they went by, lay Dan Nettleship's dying
wife.

He thought of her and of the agony she would endure
when the time went by and he did not come, and the
thought maddened him. He would not be taken away
now almost at the threshold of his home — now, when after
two weary years he was about to see his poor darling once
more.

He tore himself from the policeman's grasp with a
desperate effort. Then the man seized him by the throat,
and they fought. Dan was a powerful fellow, and he was
mad. He rained blows upon his assailant till the man's face
was disfigured and bloody.

Still he held on.

Then the crowd closed in and fought too. Help came,
and Dan was overpowered. Foaming at the mouth, and
mad with rage and despair, he was dragged along by brute
force, the knuckles of the stalwart constable being forced
into his throat and making him black in the face.

And home to the dying woman went the old mother and
the little child to tell their pitiful tale, and dash the cup of
joy from her lips just as it touched them.

*****

Dan Nettleship was taken before a magistrate, and com-
mitted for trial at the Middlesex Session? for being con-
cerned in the theft of a lady's purse, and for assaulting the
constable.

His old mother came to see him in his cell, and brought
him news of his wife. The shock had nearly killed her, but
the old woman had saved her. She had talked to her, and
convinced her that at his trial Dan wouldbe found innocent

A WAR MEDAL. 253

that it was only a few weeks longer to wait, and then all
would be well.

She had told the wife nothing of how, excited and
desperate, Dan had fought the constable, for on that point
the old lady herself had grave misgivings. Little Louie had
obeyed her grandmother, and held her tongue, but she her-
self was quite convinced that the teacher's prophecy was
coming true, and that daddy was now on his way to the
awful place.

The old lady saw her son in prison, and comforted him
with brave, hopeful words. She promised him she would
move heaven and earth to clear him and set him free, and
he had the same solemn faith in her that all had who came
to know old Nanny.

The famous barrister who had secured his former con-
viction was to her mind a tower of strength. If she could
get him to defend her boy she felt he was saved.

She would get him, cost what it might.

She saw the solicitor, and told him she wanted the
famous counsel to defend her son. He told her it would
cost too much.

" How much ? " asked Nanny.

The solicitor told her.

It was a great deal of money for a poor old woman to
raise, but Nan went away and raised it. She brought the
gold and gave it to the solicitor, who promised to retain

the great man.

Nanny raised that money by parting with all she
treasured now in the world, by parting with her donkey
and drawing her heavy barrow herself ; and when that was
not sufficient she pawned the medals which her husband
had won at the cost of his limbs, and which his dying hand

254 THREE BRASS BALLS.

had pressed into hers, bidding her treasure them and his
memory together as long as she lived.*

The day of the trial came, and Nanny took her place in
court and waited, confident in the result now the famous
barrister had Dan's case in hand.

Dan, in due course, came up, pale and ill, and took his
place in the dock, and the counsel for the prosecution
opened the case.

Nanny glanced eagerly at the counsel's box ; the great
man was not there.

Dan had noticed it too.

" I beg your pardon, your lordship," he said, " but Mr.
is going to defend me, and he is not here."

Up started a blushing youth in a wig.

" Beg pa'don, my lud ; I defend prisoner. Mr. is

engaged elsewhere, my lud."

The great counsel had handed over his brief to a junior.
It is quite the usual thing. A poor prisoner retains a clever
man at an enormous sacrifice. The clever man pockets the
fee his name secures, and hands the poor wretch over to a
'prentice hand as a matter of course.

Old Nanny would have got up there and then and made
a speech, but Dan looked at her and motioned her to be
quiet.

It was his luck. Everything was against him.

The prosecution told its tale, and piled up the chain of
facts. The young counsel blushed, made small jokes, and
damaged his client unintentionally at about every second
question he asked.

Here was a man who had just come out of prison — a gaol

* A pawnbroker receives war medals at the risk of his licence, but never-
theless they are frequently pledged.

A WAR MEDAL. 255

bird, the prosecution called him — found running away with
a purse in his pocket, and when arrested he fights the
policeman. Such facts going to a jury, what can the
verdict be ?

Dan writes a little note, and it is given to his counsel.

The counsel reads it before he calls witnesses for the
defence.

" Call Mrs. Nettleship," he says, putting the note down
and old Nanny gets into the box.

The young counsel asks her one or two questions, and
then says, "Tell us what happened," and leaves her to it.
It was the best thing he could have done.

The old woman, with her white hair and weeping eyes,
pours forth her tale with the eloquence of truth and despair.
She tells all the story of the long struggle while Dan was in
prison, and of how, just as he came out, and was nearing
home to see his dying wife, he was made the victim of a
mistake, and how, in his despair at being dragged away
when his wife's life depended on his presence, he struggled
and fought to get free.

Old Nanny tells her story with such pathetic force that
she is not interrupted. She interests the judge and the
jury too, and looks of pity are cast to the dock, where Dan
has broken down at the mention of his wife's name, and
stands, the tears trickling down his cheeks.

The judge sums up dead in Dan's favour. He suggests
that the man first pursued put the purse in Dan's open
pocket instead of flinging it away, as less likely to be
noticed. The jury clutch at the straw, and find him inno-
cent of the theft. Of the assault they find him guilty, but
strongly recommend him to mercy.

" Prisoner," says the judge, "we have heard the story of

~,6 THREE BRASS BALLS.

"3

your misfortunes from your mother, and we believe it. We
are bound to protect the police in the execution of their
duty, but in this instance it is possible you were an innocent
man made desperate by your peculiar position. You are
discharged on your own recognisances to come up when
called upon."

And finally, when Dan Nettleship went out of the court
with his brave old mother leaning on his arm, one ad-
venturous wight clapped his hands and cried " Bravo ! "
whereupon the usher sternly shouted " Silence ! "

Home as fast as their feet could carry them went mother
and son, and that evening the dying woman lifted her eyes
to her long absent husband's face, and whispered that she
could die happy now.

That night she slept her last sleep in his arms. The
morning sun found her lying with her head pillowed upon
his breast, her lips parted in a sweet smile, her arm about
his neck, and her heart still for ever.

Old Nanny Nettleship sits in her easy chair now and does
no work, for Dan has taken his old place. There were
those who heard his story at the court-house who held out
a helping hand to him, and to-day he is an honest trades-
man, and prospers.

And in his little home the old lady takes the place of
honour. It was she who brought him home to receive his
wife's last kiss ; it was she who saved him at the trial when
the counsel she had sacrificed so much to procure left him
to his fate.

The war medals are in granny's keeping once more, and
they will pass to Dan and to his children when the old
soldier's widow lays down the burden of her years. They

A WAR MEDAL. 257

are hallowed now not only with the valour of him who won
them, but with the tender love and brave endurance of her
who pawned them once to pay 2. counsel who took her fee
and left her to do his work.

Perhaps, after all, he would not have done it nearly so
well.

* * * *

Three brass balls in half relief on the big outside door-
plate of the pawnbroker's shop.

Three brass balls ! Weird and woful are the stories they
could tell of the ruined and broken-hearted, of the wanton
and the reckless, the wicked and the cruel, that creep past
them into the gloom beyond. It is the voice they lack
which here has spoken ; they are the stories hidden away
in their brazen breasts which here have been told.

Pbikted at 19 and 20, Wine Office-court, Fleet-street, i5.a.

WOR KS BY GEORGE R. SIMS

Cloth Gilt, 5s. ; by post, 5s. 6d.

BALLADS and POEMS.

Containing THE DAGONET BALLADS.

BALLADS OP BABYLON.

THE LIFEBOAT: aC(l OTHER POEM

WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR.

Price Is. ; by post, Is. 2d.

THE DAGONET BALLADS.

Price Is. ; by post, Is. 2d.

BALLADS OF BABYLON

Price Is. ; by post, Is. 2£d.

THE LIFEBOAT: and other poems.

Price Is. ; by post, Is. 2d.

THE LAND OF GOLD.

Price Is. ; by post, Is. 2|d.

The SOCIAL KALEIDOSCOPE.

Price Is. ; by post, Is. 3d.

THREE BRASS BALLS.

Price Is. ; by post, Is. 3d.

THE THEATRE OF LIFE.

Price Is. ; by post, Is. 3d.

STORIES in BLACK & WHITE.

May be obtained of all Newsagents and Booksellers, or of the Publisher,
THOMAS VERNON, 19 &> 20, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, London.

C.